USB On-the-Go Go Go Go

abhikhurana writes " There is an interesting article on CNET about a new USB standard called USB On-the-Go. Apparently this new technology is an offshoot of USB2 and it can remove the limitation of the master slave operation of normal USB devices, where you need a Host PC (the Master) to talk with the peripherals (the slaves). So using this, theoretically you can print using your digital camera directly on your printer or maybe connect two PDAs together to exchange some files. One thing that the article doesn't mention though is the speed one can expect from such a connection. If its as fast as USB2 then I think it can also act as the replacement for NICs for interconnecting two PCs. But considering that many wireless technologies like bluetooth offer similar opertational capabilities,albeit they are much slower, can USB On-the-Go really be a success? "

Comments

Not a chance..

[Loki_1929]

Nothing can compete with the power of this new and exciting technology that's about to take off, called... infrared !

FireWire already Goes Goes Goes

[Anonymous Coward]

FireWire works in a peer-to-peer fashion. You can hook up components without a computer to mediate.

Re:FireWire already Goes Goes Goes

[terminal.dk]

Yes, it is yet another playing catchup on Firewire. I winder what the big fuzz is all about. Old technology re-implemented, and sold as new.

Windows XP even includes TCP/IP drivers for Firewire, and will allow you to network machines using FireWire. It finds both the FW interface on my SB Audigy Soundcard as well as my stand-alone FW card.

People should skip that USB crap, and go to the source, where it is proven technology with years behind it.

Re:FireWire already Goes Goes Goes

[Zathrus]

People should skip that USB crap, and go to the source, where it is proven technology with years behind it

Sure, except that my printer, my scanner, and my camera already speak USB. I suppose I should just throw them out and buy new stuff.

Hrm... where are those cheap firewire ink jets? Or scanners? And, ya know, I just bought this Nikon 770 a year ago. I think it's still good.

People buy the interface that works with their components. Frankly, every PC shipped in the past 4 years has at least USB 1.0 on it. Relatively few have Firewire/IEEE1394. And since Firewire is more expensive to implement than USB, you can count on the vast majority of devices to continue implementing USB and ignoring Firewire.

Does Firewire have its place? Sure. But it's not on most consumer devices. Up until USB 2.0 it was the only choice for devices that needed high speed digital data ports (like video cameras), but USB 2.0 is still cheaper to implement.

Firewire isn't going to die off by any means - it's solidly entrenched in the video market, and HDTV is likely to make this even more true. But lay off the "USB sucks, Firewire r0x0rs" - USB does very well for a very broad selection of products and at a fraction of the cost.

As for the people whining about USB sucking CPU cycles - uh... and you're telling me that you max out a 1 GHz+ CPU constantly? Gimme a break.

Re:FireWire already Goes Goes Goes

[utexaspunk]

Sure, except that my printer, my scanner, and my camera already speak USB. I suppose I should just throw them out and buy new stuff.

*News Flash* - your printer, scanner, etc. may speak USB, but they don't speak USB 2.0, or USB-on-the-go. So they're not going to be able to take advantage of this. Why invest in an interface that has to keep coming out with new standards just to keep up with one that already supports all the functionality you want?

Besides, consumer devices ARE moving to firewire. Look at the iPod, or a lot of new digital cameras. Everyone's eventually going to have FW because eventually everyone's gonna want to play with DV. Apple was smart enough to recognize this. Apparently you aren't.

Developer Info

[MountainLogic]

More On The Go details can be found at the USB association's web site

How many more USB do we need?

[euxneks]

next up:
USB3
USBSEEME
RUSB (Are USB?)
USBT (U Suck Big Time)
USBX! (for X-box!)
USBPS2 (for the mouse!)

I thought that USB was so we wouldn't have this many connections??

can USB On-the-Go really be a success?

[stratjakt]

Absolutely.

There are lots of advantages over bluetooth, etc.

No batteries, you can power stuff off the USB inteface.

Wireless (in)security.

Interference.

Cheaper.

Sometimes wireless stuff is just a pain in the ass.

It'd be nice to be able to just buy a digital camera and a photo printer, and be able to bypass a computer altogether. Not every electronic device in your home need be linked together somehow.

The 'interface' aspect of just plugging something in to 'connect' it is easier for the layman to grasp than having devices announcing themselves to each other over the air, etc.

Strange

[Jobe_br]

I was under the impression that Intel had purposefully designed the USB protocol to be processor bound. This type of connectivity is already provided by Firewire, so I don't particularly see why this would be beneficial, unless devices somehow don't need to be explicitly USB On-the-go compatible or (more likely), the chipset/firmware for USB On-the-go is cheaper to produce/license than Firewire is.

In any case, my chips are still on Firewire - its a solid, fast and proven interconnect technology. With transfer speeds in excess of 38MB per sec. (76% of theoretical max of 50MB/sec) - I'd say they're doing quite decent. I'm not sure what USB2 is up to these days, but last I heard, they were still a far cry from their goal of even being faster than Firewire, in real world applications.

Incidentally - I don't mean to start a flame war on the benefits of Firewire v. USB - so don't get started. The transfer speed I threw out above is a valid benchmark for a external RAID array (that has drives fast enough to support that transfer rate and a equivalent RAID configuration to boot). I don't follow USB2 developments closely, so if I'm mistaken on its real-world speeds, forgive me and don't waste /. bandwidth by flaming me :).

Cheers.

Re:Strange

[Yohahn]

The USB PCI controler cards can directly access memory, like many other PCI cards
The PCI interface in practice (not theory) is a bottle neck here. USB2/Firewire on the motherboard chipset is always going to be faster than on the PCI bus.

Where did the USB is processor bound rumor come from?

If I'm wrong, will somebody please supply a source so I can correct myself?

Re:Strange

[Yohahn]

Here's an article to back up my claims that the speeds are similar. This is not a conclusive comparison, but it will show that USB 2.0 is comparible in speed to Firewire IN PRACTICE.

Firewire : Same Price, Twice the Speed

[shking]

By the time this ships, Firewire will be twice as fast. Firewire has always had this capability & is about to double its speed. To quote the article:

The debut of USB On-the-Go helps USB 2.0 draw closer in functionality to rival IEEE 1394, also known as FireWire. The 1394 specification, which is used widely in consumer-electronics devices such as digital videos, also has so-called host capabilities. Analysts say it would cost about the same to implement 1394 and USB On-the-Go in devices.

Re:Firewire : Same Price, Twice the Speed

[cdrudge]

You can go to the same store and buy a Firewire card for about the same price. And for that price, you can get the ability to sustain 400 Mbit transfers where USB 2.0 can only burst to those speeds. FireWire has also been around longer and I think is more mature then USB 2.0. Firewire 2.0 will come eventually, but right now, I think that it still beats USB 2.0 as a technology

Still Not There

[Salamander]

USB OTG is still not really symmetric. It's just a way for devices to negotiate over who gets to be master; that master then takes over all the polling that the computer would be doing in traditional USB. It's still a fundamentally crappy way to do things, it wastes resources (which the consumer does pay for), and it only works for two devices instead of N. Firewire is still way better technically, and here today.

Master and Servant

[_Sambo]

USB on the go is not Peer to Peer. The cable connecting the devices will determine which device is the Host (read Master) and which is the Peripheral (read Slave). They've also got two new connecting protocols. Each device must be a Dual Role Device. (DRD is my new TLA for the day). I understood the documentation on USB On the Go to say that each device that is compliant will have the drivers of the other devices that it will work with. Does this mean that they will be severely limited in what devices they will work with. (e.g. only HP cameras will work with HP printers, PDA's etc.) I found more info at: http://www.usb.org/developers/onthego/ The PDF presentations regarding On-The-Go are somewhat annoyingly colorful, but they may be trying to yak in marketingspeak.

OK People, Pay attention!

[handorf]

USB:
Low speed peripherals (Keyboards, mice)
Low price peripherals, medium bandwidth (scanners, CDRW, small hard drives, mp3 players)
Firmly entrenched, all new PCs have USB 1.1 at least
Cheaper to implement.

Firewire:
High speed devices (Hard drives, video cameras, etc)
More expensive to implement
NOT FIRMLY ENTRENCHED!

USB is here to stay, people. A Firewire mouse just isn't going to happen. A Firewire scanner is a waste of $25 to implement the firewire on the scanner and the motherboard to support it.

Please stop with the "Who cares? Firewire is better!" If you have a PDA with a firewire chip on it, I'd like to see it! (A real PDA, not a very small PC).

This does matter, if you don't care, go back to the "Why buy a Toyota? An F-18 is faster!" threads.

Re:I'm offended!!

[DLWormwood]

I wonder when the PC (politically-correct, not personal computer) crowd will take exception to the technological "master/slave" terminology.

Around about the time they finally wise up to our use of "male" and "female" for connector cables and plugs...

Re:pics from my camera straight to my printer?

[ncc74656]

what if your camera makes insanely large photos and you would prefer to have them at 1024x768 or smaller?

just change your dpi. 1800x1200 at 300 dpi is a standard size photo. odds are your camera won't have enough MP to print a full sized 8.5x11 sheet of paper (without interpolation).

Unless you have a dye-sublimation printer, you're not printing your photos at 300 dpi anyway...odds are you're closer to 100-150 dpi. Since most printers can only squirt ink or not squirt ink (there's no software-based control of how muck ink is squirted), you need to use dithering to get 4 (or maybe 6) colors to look like 24-bit color.