Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

MultiSwitch, the First USB Sharing Hub

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the yours-mine-and-ours dept.

Iddo Genuth writes "A new extension to USB that will enable sharing of various USB peripherals between computers will be available early in 2007. The new MultiSwitch hub technology, developed by SMSC, allows the sharing of information and content from devices such as DVD players, cameras, printers, and scanners, and between laptops and desktops using a simple USB cable. Future hubs may also allow wireless sharing of peripherals."

4 of 102 comments (clear)

  1. Similar products that have been out for a while by paladinwannabe2 · · Score: 4, Informative

    There are both software and hardware solutions that do similar things already.

    (Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with either company, but have used some of both company's techonology at work.)

    --
    You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
  2. stupid stupid stupid by bananaendian · · Score: 4, Informative

    Hello blatant product advertisement!

    This is NOT "extension to USB"! - this is a proprietary technology that has nothing to do with the USB standard.

    USB devices were never meant to be shared this way. Just because someone made 'a switch' that manages to reproduce and route the data between two different host machines at the hardware level doesn't solve anything. You will still have a hopeless guagmire of compatibility issues due to conflicting host software and drivers. Its hopeless because USB devices and software were never meant to work this way. Just because they show it works occationally on one or two devices, doesn't mean it'l work on your devices and with your software for them.

    From their FAQ: "Keep in mind that USB provides a connecting technology and not a network. Since the USB MultiSwitch Hub is a standard USB 2.0 device, only one person can use a connected device at a time. For example, I plug in my MultiSwitch Hub-enabled laptop, share your printer and/or get what I need from an external USB hard drive and then, when you want it back, we switch the devices back to you. If we want to toggle back and forth, we can do that. But only one of us can access the desired USB device at a time."

    Told you so! Haha!

    --
    www.tribalnetworks.org - helping tribal people around the world to own their own means of high-tech communications
  3. Re:How is this better than a mechanical USB switch by baldass_newbie · · Score: 3, Informative
    All four can use it at the same time?

    If you had bothered to read the fine article, you would realize that four machines can't use the USB device at the same time with this, either.

    From the article:
    Q: What happens when two people try to use the same device at the same time from two different computers?

    A: Keep in mind that USB provides a connecting technology and not a network. Since the USB MultiSwitch Hub is a standard USB 2.0 device, only one person can use a connected device at a time. For example, I plug in my MultiSwitch Hub-enabled laptop, share your printer and/or get what I need from an external USB hard drive and then, when you want it back, we switch the devices back to you. If we want to toggle back and forth, we can do that. But only one of us can access the desired USB device at a time.
    --
    The opposite of progress is congress
  4. Re:what, exactly, would you use this for? by radarsat1 · · Score: 3, Informative
    Mouse - two computers, one mouse? madness. Same for keyboards.


    Actually I use synergy to do this all the time. (Between Windows & Linux no less.)
    It's useful when you have a laptop and a desktop workstation, like I do in my lab at school.