back to article USB4: Based on Thunderbolt 3. Two times the data rate, at 40Gbps. One fewer space. Zero confusing versions

USB version 4 is on the way, offering double the fastest possible USB data transfer rate over the previous generation: a satisfying 40Gbps. On Monday, the USB Promoter Group announced the new spec is ready to be revealed, just a week after details of the latest iteration of the current standard – USB 3.2 – was released. Note …

  1. Tromos
    WTF?

    If the naming gets clarified much more...

    ...I won't have an effing clue what's going on!

  2. Andy Mac
    Facepalm

    So if USB 3.0 is now 3.2 Gen 1, what is now considered 3.0?

    And will USB4.\|~> be called SuperDuperSpeed?

    1. Phil Kingston

      They've done High and Full already so I reckon we must be heading for a Mega or a Hyper.

      1. Montreal Sean

        I'm holding out for USB5, to be referred to as...

        USB Plaid

        1. Danny 4

          I'm holding out for USB5, to be referred to as...

          Enough with these number things: USB Pentium.

          1. bpfh

            I second this. And they can call it Pentium for 20 years and about 10 versions before changing to usb core 2 duo. And usb Xeon for the professional version. And a usb Itanium that is not really usb at all...

            Ok, then all that sounded better in my head.

      2. DJV Silver badge

        Then there will be:

        USB with knobs on

        USB with even more knobs on

        USB with really shiny knobs on

        USB with so many knobs on that there isn't room for any more knobs

        (then some knob will come along and start adding version numbers back in again)

        1. 9Rune5

          In that case, I'm waiting for the USB standard where all the knobs are black on a black panel.

          I remember being upset with them when they wanted to refer to USB 2.0 as "full speed". They must realize that they will be among the first to be put against the wall when the revolution comes?

          1. DJV Silver badge

            "In that case, I'm waiting for the USB standard where all the knobs are black on a black panel."

            I wanted one of those but they said I had to spend the year dead for tax reasons before they'd me have it.

        2. MysteryGuy

          >Then there will be:

          >

          >USB with knobs on...

          Thinking back to cars from the days of my youth, I would expect USB with racing stripes or flames painted on the hood/fenders...

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            " I would expect USB with racing stripes [...]"

            aka "go faster stripes" - and don't forget the "Bob" and "Sue" stickers***.

            ***Both of which are gender neutral names.

        3. zuckzuckgo Silver badge

          USB with knobs on

          They just should turn it up to 11 and go with USB Xi

      3. Mike Moyle

        "They've done High and Full already so I reckon we must be heading for a Mega or a Hyper."

        LudicrousSpeed!

      4. SimonC

        If it's HD and Full then the next iteration would surely be USB True, aka TRUSB

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Coat

      It will be called USB 4 Warp... oh wait....

      1. Dave 126 Silver badge

        Super ~Street Fighter 2~ *USB* Hyper Turbo Edition

    3. Fatman
      Coat

      RE: And will USB4.\|~> be called SuperDuperSpeed?

      May I nominate:

      Ludicrous Speed

      </snark>

    4. aelfric
      Big Brother

      There is no 3.0, there never was a 3.0, it has always been 3.2 Gen 1.

    5. Fungus Bob
  3. IGnatius T Foobar !

    Thunderbolt

    It would have been a lot easier if they'd just taken the existing Thunderbolt specification and said "ok, this now *is* USB 4".

    1. Rob - Denmark
      Coat

      Re: Thunderbolt

      But then there would have been a space in the name...

      1. defiler

        Re: Thunderbolt

        So they can still do it. We'll have USB4 and USB 4, and they'll be incompatible.

        Won't be much worse than the mess they've just created...

  4. Kevin McMurtrie Silver badge

    LumpSpeed

    Isn't 40Gbps the point where small unshielded twisted pairs start needing frequent repeaters? Maybe the cables are lumpy.

    1. A Non e-mouse Silver badge

      Re: LumpSpeed

      I'm no RF engineer, but as USB is only a short range interconnect you can probably get away with it. Also, it might not really be running at, say 40Gb/s, but maybe something like 4 x 10 Gb/s.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: LumpSpeed

      Wasn't one of the disadvantages of Thunderbolt in the first place that it placed the line drivers in the cable plugs rather than the sockets? That makes sense from a technical point of view as the drivers can be matched to the length of the cable, but it puts the price up too.

    3. P. Lee

      Re: LumpSpeed

      Or indeed, why not 40g Ethernet?

      Available now.

      1. Korev Silver badge
        Coat

        Re: LumpSpeed

        I bet that'd cost a packet

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: LumpSpeed

          LumpSpeed - now that would be a fantastic name to use!

  5. cb7

    Why tf couldn't they just use 3.0, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3... 4.0 etc.? It's not like they were already taken!

    1. Kevin Fairhurst

      Now the marketing team can insist on fitting the slowest ports and still claim “it has the latest USB3.2” on the spec sheet. Trebles all round!

    2. Evil Auditor Silver badge
      Coat

      Why tf couldn't they just use 3.0, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3... 4.0 etc.? It's not like they were already taken!

      Yes yes, whatever. But will we finally be able to tell which way it plugs in and which way in plugs in with force?

      1. Immenseness
        Devil

        which way it plugs in

        What fascinates me is that for those USB sticks/plugs that can only go in one way round, there are 2 possible ways to try, so why is it when I try and plug them in they *always* seem to go in on the third attempt? Enquiring minds and all that.

        1. Fred Flintstone Gold badge

          Re: which way it plugs in

          That was one of the first things they sorted out - even before USB 1 existed.

          It's called Murphy's Law, and, just to illustrate how wonderfully ironic a law it is, it wasn't even formulated by Murphy :)

        2. Dr. Mouse

          Re: which way it plugs in

          Because, before it is observed, it doesn't have a state. It is only upon observing it that you force it to take a state, after which you rotate, it's the wrong way round, so you rotate again. Simple quantum connector theory.

          1. Evil Auditor Silver badge
            Thumb Up

            Re: which way it plugs in

            Brilliant!

          2. Eddy Ito

            Re: which way it plugs in

            Of course! It's a spin 1/2 particle! It all makes sense now.

        3. AndersH

          Re: which way it plugs in

          Quantum physics (and Redit) has explained this. Your USB plug is in superposition until observed.

          https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/226qum/usb_superposition/

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Or why not just use the speed as part of the name:

      USB5

      USB10

      USB20

      USB40

      Admittedly USB50000000 might be a bit annoying a hundred years from now, but that's just SEP.

      1. Crypto Monad Silver badge

        Under that scheme, USB would have been originally called USB0.0015 (or "full speed" USB0.012), and the next generation would have been USB0.48

    4. bpfh
      Joke

      They probably found that were copyrighted by Microsoft

      1. EnviableOne
        Facepalm

        Copywrite law

        they found Lesiure suit larry has copywrite on sequential version numbers

        1. Charles 9
          Joke

          Re: Copywrite law

          ORLY? What happened to LSL4, then? The real holder should probably go to Roger Wilco and his numerous Space Quest installments. Even King's Quest gave up numbering after #7 IIRC.

    5. Dave559 Silver badge

      To avoid further confusion all versions of USB prior to USB4 should be retronymed to USBB4USB4.

  6. Mayday
    Megaphone

    Please

    Dont change the physical interface from the current/USB-C formfactor.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Please

      > Dont change the physical interface from the current/USB-C formfactor.

      A magsafe version would be nice. :-)

    2. JohnFen

      Re: Please

      "Dont change the physical interface from the current/USB-C formfactor."

      But please do stop shoving all those incompatible signals through USB-C. As it is right now, we're back in the dark ages when cables that look identical on the outside can inserted into the wrong sockets and physically damage your devices. We're going to have to start labeling our cables and sockets again and remembering to double-check everything before plugging anything in.

      It's insanity.

  7. Phil Bennett

    What about power delivery?

    And alternate mode?

    Those are the things that turn USB3 from a minor annoyance ("my device is running at 5Gbps instead of 10gbps - must be a slow port") to a game of what will work with this usbc port.

    I've recently shopped for a laptop dock, and half of them use the Alternate Mode to support at least one of their displays. Does the port on my laptop support HDMI alternate mode? Displayport? Neither? Neither. Great.

    I've also been shopping for a new power adapter for my Nintendo Switch, which uses USB-C (ish, apparently). All I need is USBC PD, right? Nope, there are 4 different voltages and god only knows how many power ratings.

    So much for the Universal part of the name...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: What about power delivery?

      They need to only support USB-C with USB4, make the alternate modes mandatory, and only two power modes, low (regular old USB) and max (the full 100 watts) so there are only two types of ports and two types of cables.

      They won't, of course, they will make it an even more confusing mess than USB3(.x) because they hate us.

      1. Dr. Mouse

        Re: What about power delivery?

        "only two power modes, low (regular old USB) and max (the full 100 watts)"

        But then, what about devices which need (say) 30W via USB? Does the mfr have to supply a more expensive 100W PSU?

        Also, what happens when they up the spec and allow 300W? Yet another power mode is required (for backwards compatibility. And the older ones using the different power levels already, don't they need to maintain backwards compatibility with them?

        This is always going to be the issue with backwards compatibility.

        1. DaLo

          Re: What about power delivery?

          If the device needs 30 Watts then surely 100 Watts is more than enough for that?

          I don't quite understand your point.

          1. Dr. Mouse

            Re: What about power delivery?

            If the spec only allowed 2 power points, and the device only accepted USB PD as a charger/PSU, then the charger/PSU would have to be a 100W "max" charger. This would be more expensive to produce than one which would supply what the device actually needed (or close to it).

    2. TRT Silver badge

      Re: What about power delivery?

      ???

      There's a universe of possibilities. Makes perfect sense.

    3. cb7

      Re: What about power delivery?

      I recently found that HP don't stick to the Power Delivery spec for some of their recent laptops. So despite using a USB-C power connector, you can't just plug in a USB-C charger from say a Lenovo laptop and expect it to work.

      So much for a "Universal" standard as you say.

  8. DickJR

    C'mon USB consort.

    They just saturate the market with this nonsense.Who buying USB 2.0 or similar !

    1. Is It Me

      Re: C'mon USB consort.

      USB 2 support is baked in to Windows 7, USB 3 isn't.

      This means on a computer with USB 3 only you can't install vanilla Windows 7, you have to preload the drivers.

      It should be a self resolving issue with the end of Win7 support, but I can't see it going for a while.

      1. Ken Hagan Gold badge

        Re: C'mon USB consort.

        "This means on a computer with USB 3 only you can't install vanilla Windows 7, you have to preload the drivers."

        Of course you can. You just have to set the VM settings to *say* that the virtual hardware is only USB2.

        Oh wait ... you're not installing Windows on the bare metal, are you?

    2. JohnFen

      Re: C'mon USB consort.

      "Who buying USB 2.0 or similar "

      I am! USB2 is still easy and relatively foolproof. USB3 is less so. Since there's nothing USB3 offers that I want, I stick with 2 when I have the choice.

  9. gypsythief
    Mushroom

    Use Case?

    I can see external hard drives being one, if anyone still uses those (well, apart from Mac users without up-gradable internal storage), but for anyone else? My mouse transfers a few KB/s, my keyboard something similar. USB 2 actually suffices really well for the vast majority of [at least my] use cases.

    In the meantime, I'm stuck shuftying files around my network at 1Gb/s. Plz can we haz 10Gb/s network kit at affordable prices, rather than faffing about with ever faster-faster-faster USB?

    (Icon --> my over-loaded switch going nuclear)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Use Case?

      It includes any data transfer - if you're using an 8K camera and have to download the footage an high speed connection is nice. It also includes what was DisplayPort - aka display connections.

      Ethernet 10G is slowly becoming more affordable, bus since most consumer/SOHO installation were moved to WiFi there's less demand for lower end 10G devices, and that reflects on prices. Moreover, not many lower end devices would really take advantage of it.

      1. JohnFen

        Re: Use Case?

        SD cards seem a superior solution for this to me.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Use Case?

      Best use case I have seen for Thunderbolt and so USB4 is:

      High Spec Laptop

      Thunderbolt passthrough external GPU enclosure

      Thunderbolt hub with mouse, external display, keyboard etc.

      You sit down with your high spec laptop (something with a beefy CPU), plug in ONE thunderbolt and suddenly you have all your peripherals, a 4k display and a beefy GPU to play games/video edit on. All from one plug, not multiple of the same, just one tiny thunderbolt.

      It is pretty impressive.

      1. TwistedPsycho

        Re: Use Case?

        Why stop at a high spec laptop?

        Have a mid spec i5 laptop or 2-in-1 that is light-weight for working on the road and an Intel Serial Bus 4 connected beast unit with a second processor that can co-operate.

        From a business use case, you then could have a ratio of beast units to standard units that staff can simply dock into place and it automatically uprates the work that you are trying to do.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Use Case?

          Sure, why not indeed.

          I was going along the personal use gaming PC use case really, and this use case gets around the issues with cooling (internal GPU is not used) and upgradability but also leaves you portable with a decent machine.

          It is cool tech, but I'll stick with a tower because I'm a caveman.

      2. DrBobK

        Re: Use Case?

        Spot on. I have a MacBook with Thunderbolt 3 sockets. One connection to connect two 4K HDR monitors, two backup disks, wired ethernet, mouse and keyboard. I haven't got an external GPU, but I could add one of those too. Quite amazing.

    3. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

      Re: Use Case?

      I have an ASI178MM planetary camera with 6 Mpixel, 12 bits/pixel grey scale running 60 FPS uncompressed and pumping the data to a Samsung T5 500 GB extern SSD at 400-450 MB/s, grabbing some 250 GB of lunar data in under 20 minutes. I would love to have the ASI183MM (20-odd Mpixel) running at the same frame rate. I would capture more quickly, and need far fewer panes for full-resolution lunar mosaics. Perhaps a niche, but there must be more use cases

      1. Andy The Hat Silver badge

        Re: Use Case?

        Quicker? Using what data store to keep up with it? It's not likely that most astro photographers would consider putting a high bandwidth raid stack next to their imaging laptop to dump their images onto, with dew potentially running down the front of the case ... If you have a warm room, the "USB3.4.5.6 type 3 - HyperX" transmission distance will probably be too short so you then start to think about remote dumping across a 10Gb network but you'll have to use bandwidth aggregation on multiple channels to match the sooper-whatsit-USB throughput ... And, even if you could do that for less than stupid-cost, damn win10 would still insist on updating in the middle of the session ...

      2. Ken Hagan Gold badge
        Happy

        Re: Use Case?

        "Perhaps a niche, but ..."

        Crikey! It's only March and already we have the winner of the 2019 Understatement of the Year contest.

    4. devTrail

      Re: Use Case?

      I agree that in many cases you don't need a fast USB, but:

      - Linux Virtual machine on an external encrypted drive.

      - Transfer data with PCs not connected to the network for security reason.

      - When the training data has to be preprocessed several times in different way to run different versions of an experiment and you don't want to clutter the local drive you might be tempted to train your software keeping the data on the external drive, but it might take ages.

      1. Dave 126 Silver badge

        Re: Use Case?

        Audio hardware works better on a stream based protocol than a packet based protocol.

        But yeah, external GPUs, external displays, single cable docking... it opens up lots of possibilities.

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Use Case?

      Main use case is for marketroids (and certain users) to say "well we've got USB4 and you only have USB3 - USB 4 is one bigger so its better"

  10. Hans 1
    Meh

    since Intel's people are in the driving seat, sanity should prevail

    Intel are naming i3's i5's or i7's, yes, yes ... I had already seen i5^H3's in laptops and recently, already commented about it, found an i7^H3.

    Intel has been taken over by the marketing monks, every single one of these claims to have created a Jobsian reality distortion field when all they are waving is a $0.02 ferromagnetic wand.

    1. oiseau
      Facepalm

      Hello:

      Intel The world has been taken over by the marketing monks ...

      There you go.

      Looks more like where we're at these days.

      Cheers,

      O.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    double the fastest possible USB

    as in "UP TO double the fastest possible USB", as per all previous USB claims?

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    USB colour coding

    I would invest in red paint. Or green, if you want to be be future-proof re. USB5

    p.s. interesting, what pathetic name the marketoids come up for this one, hyperbolt USB? Infinitely-faster-than-light USB?

    1. Baldrickk

      Re: USB colour coding

      USB-mc2?

    2. TRT Silver badge

      Re: USB colour coding

      Well, it will be the one connector to do all things, royalty free and open standards. Which won't suit Apple at all. They'll have to whip out some version of it... maybe with a physically incompatible magnetic latching connector that'll cost 23 cents each to license.

      And as for naming conventions...

      Thunderbolt - Lightning - Very Very Frightening.

      1. Dave 126 Silver badge

        Re: USB colour coding

        Well, Apple played nice with FireWire (aka iLink or somethingorover) and have helped the adoption of USB C and Intel's Thunderbolt.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    there are some new names, but they have only further confused people

    We like confusion, confusion is good, confusion means suckers will be sucked for another 10 - 20 years

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What a shit idea.

    One of the main benefits of USB over Firewire (then) and Thunderbolt (now) for me always was that USB never allowed direct DMA bus access to outside devices. Yes, you can mitigate that with host side IOMMU, but that is still dodgy, as it may or may not already be activated during the boot process. I can only hope that they will not do 1:1 cloning of the specifications.

    If they do it will be a serious rollback of a higer security standard.

    1. Charles 9

      Who cares about security if we can't make the F'n deadline? When it comes between doing it fast and doing it right, fast wins every time because you can BS around a wrong answer but not a missed deadline.

      Otherwise, show me a high-speed, low-latency device interconnect that doesn't use DMA of some sort. My back-of-envelope physics calculations tell me you can't; the speed of light gets in the way.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        No security does matter ! - if the port security is hackable, then we can’t rely on it

        So would have to avoid the interface - or would have to try to sanatize it in some way.

        We are at a point now where we really should be trying to get things right.

        Untrustworthy links are unacceptable.

        (Yes I know that all current links are presently untrustworthy to some extent)

        We really do need to do better - especially with data volumes growing.

        1. Charles 9

          Tell that to the board. Security DOES NOT matter when deadlines take higher priority to the ones who cut the checks.

    2. Nick Ryan Silver badge

      I've been under the impression that USB allowed DMA. This may have depended on the device class and the supporting chipset but I'm fairly sure that it's been there for quite a while.

      1. Charles 9

        DMA IINM was introduced in USB3 with the high-speed data lines. As mentioned previously, it's kind of a necessary evil when throughput and/or latency are critical (the speed of electricity and the overhead of relays tend to preclude alternatives).

  15. tatatata
    Stop

    What did they say?

    But what does it all mean? I thought my command of the English language was sufficient, but I just do not understand what "The primary goal of USB is to deliver the best user experience combining data, display and power delivery over a user-friendly and robust cable and connector solution," actually means. Or "we’re opening the doors for innovation across a wide range of devices and increasing compatibility to deliver better experiences to consumers," Is there anyone that can distill any information from that sentence?

    When I see statements like that, I think they used one of the many mission statement generators that you can find on the Internet. I can make press releases like that too:

    It is USB4's mission to disseminate interdependent technology. It is committed to synergistically fashion infrastructures. It is engineered to meet the needs of an ever-changing marketplace. It is for integration in mission critical services to meet the increasing needs of the users.

    (users? shouldn't that be utilizationers?)

    1. Steve Graham
    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: What did they say?

      what u lack is ideation, my friend.

  16. Will Godfrey Silver badge
    Unhappy

    Crazy

    Just how much more complexity can they pile into this 'simple' interface before it all collapses under it's own weight? Does anyone actually understand the protocol(s) anymore?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Joke

      Re: Crazy

      > Just how much more complexity can they pile into this 'simple' interface before it all collapses under it's own weight? Does anyone actually understand the protocol(s) anymore?

      It's okay - Poettering's on it and USB4d will be in the kernel soon.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "This follows from Intel's promise to make Thunderbolt 3 royalty free"

    HIstorical note: I seem to recall hearing that way back the future was going to be the high speed firewire connections .... however, while of the "patent pool" members wnated a royalty of something like 50c per device using the interface one of them (Apple) were insistent on something like $2 per port. Result was that people decided firewire was not going to be cost effective on anything other than high end and they picked up a thing called USB that Intel had but until then had been considered to be too slow as the cheap'n'cheerful option to go with

  18. anthonyhegedus Silver badge

    and millennials will still call it a 'charger' because that's what they seem to call all leads these days.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I am hoping for Ludicrous Speed

    I am hoping they would call it LudicrousSpeed.

  20. Alister

    USB Trivalent interface

    One of the mysteries of the USB standard, is that the A and B connectors require rotating through 540 degrees before they will successfully connect. This is a triumph of multi-dimensional engineering, but as yet no-one has worked out how it was done...

  21. bob42

    Let me know when it goes all the way up to 11

  22. SimonC
    Coat

    Someone tell me why we need 40gbps

    If only they made USB-C a single cable type, with a reversible connector, where *every single cable* must fully support *every single function* so we can live in a world where we can plug anything into anything, charge up anything with anything else from any cable in any system. Slap the USB4 spec on top of it.

    I have a battery pack for a camera light that says warning: only use usb chargers rated 2 amps or more (had to fish around for ageees before I found one).

    If you have to hunt for the right charger, and the right cable, it's NOT UNIVERSAL. Call it SB4 instead.

    Mine's the coat with the 6 usb cables, one's too short, one's too long, one's the wrong usb type, one only works when you wiggle it, one only does charging, and one of them is the messiah that charges and connects anything but frequently goes missing while I await its return.

  23. CuriousYellow
    Coat

    Just call it UB40 and we're done !o)

    Yes tat's it, the one with the Prodigy CDs stuffed in the pockets...

    1. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge
      Coat

      New Chrissie Hynde and UB40 collaboration...

      BrassUSB40 Drive in pocket

  24. Eddy Ito

    Meanwhile: 98.4% of desk jockeys are thinking:

    "FFS, what is this USB 3.217 Reversion 5x or USB 3.226 Gestation 2b9 nonsense? For the love of [deity] the pamphlet that came with the computer says it takes USB C? Why, why can't I just get a simple damn USB C?"

  25. Big_Boomer Silver badge

    Lemmy!

    To paraphrase one of his favourite sayings "Can we have everything faster than everything else?"

    Personally I can't wait until my Quantum PC can instantaneously move an infinite amount of data to my infinite capacity Quantum storage device via USB-Q. :-)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Lemmy!

      I suspect it was Ian Gillam of Deep Purple you were paraphrasing. I think he said can we have everything louder than everything else. Can't be arsed gurgling it, so I await cries of indignation with bated breath.

  26. JohnFen

    USB has lost the plot

    The Big Problem that USB solved was that it made connecting an managing peripherals much easier and less error-prone that it had been with the legacy serial port. However, beginning with USB 3, that advantage seems to have been eliminated.

    USB4 promises to make that even worse, particularly since it will use USB-C, which makes the complexity problem worse than ever all by itself.

    We'll see, though. Maybe they're work this out in the end. In the meantime, I'm going to stick with USB2. If I need high speed data transfer, I'm not using USB anyway, so 2 is just fine.

    1. Charles 9

      Re: USB has lost the plot

      Then what WILL you use, given the dearth of supported alternatives?

  27. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Why on earth has the USB Implementers Forum (USB IF) come up with such a terrible system? You'll have to ask them..."

    i was rather hoping that, as a news agency, you might do the asking and report on your findings.

  28. David Hicklin Bronze badge

    Cable Length

    and for each doubling of speed the maximum cable length will halve..

  29. Kez

    All I ask

    Is for universal USB-C compatibility. Time was, you could plug a cable with a shaped plug into a port with a matching shape, and could reasonably expect some level of communication between the devices at either end (driver or software problems notwithstanding). With USB-C, you have ports and devices that natively support USB 3.0, USB 3.1, USB 2.0 Thunderbolt 3, charging, DisplayPort, HDMI, Ethernet, even PCI-E - the host device may support all of the above OR NONE AT ALL, and the only way to check is by looking up compatibility against a spec sheet. Try getting a non-technical person to understand that... It's even more confusing than the M.2. PCI-E / SATA debacle.

  30. Disk0
    Coat

    Reuse, repurpose, recycle

    Let's just call it Ultra-Fast Doublewide MultiMedia-USB 40.000

    mine's the one with the 68-pun terminator in the left pocket...

  31. TrumpSlurp the Troll
    Trollface

    FTA-VFFT?

    Otherwise known as faster than a very fast fast thing.

  32. nojava

    fibre

    USB4? How about fibre anyone? QSFP looks fun. I still struggling upgrading to USB 3.0. The quest for ultra cheap copper leaves me far behind.

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