STAR Watch Statewide Technology Assistance Resources Project A publication of the Western New York Law Center,Inc. Volume 14 Issue 2 Mar-Apr 2010 1.0, 1.1, 2.0... Get Ready for USB 3.0 Around the beginning of this year, the first USB 3.0 coexist peacefully with all of the USB 3.0 devices began making their way USB 2.0 devices currently in existence or to the computer marketplace. Marketed will all of those devices suddenly become as “SuperSpeed USB”, the newly-arrived obsolete? More great news: Without any devices are not just fast, they are wickedly adapters or modifications, USB 2.0 and fast. To help you to gain a perspective on USB 3.0 devices are interconnectable. exactly how fast, consider the following: Your existing USB devices will continue to The SATA interface that is used to work. The new standard is backward connect most hard drives to the computer, compatible. operates at 3.0 Gigabits per second Beyond speed and compatibility, there are (Gbps). The new USB 3.0 standard is other less noticeable, but important 60% faster than that. improvements. The new USB manages USB 2.0, the current standard, operates at 480 Mbps. That makes USB 3.0 10x faster than its predecessor. And what about its performance against Firewire In this issue… (IEEE 1394)? It’s no contest. The new • 1.0, 1.1, 2.0… Get USB is 12x faster than Firewire 400 and Ready for USB 3.0 6x faster than Firewire 800. As we said • Microsoft Begins Work on earlier, it’s extremely fast. Internet Explorer 9 What else? • More Online Trainings Available Being fast is only part of the story. In • March, 2010 Web Statistics order to be accepted, a new product needs to be usable by the masses. Will • Who We Are STAR Watch - 2 Mar-Apr 2010 power better. It supports idle, sleep and USB 3.0, and the device treats the suspend modes, ensuring that USB connection as a USB 3.0 connection. If devices will power down (saving power) the electrical circuit isn’t completed and wake up when the computer does. (because the computer/hub, cable, or Compared to USB 2.0, it also can provide device isn’t USB 3.0 capable), everything 50% more power to the connected operates in USB 2.0 mode. Pretty devices. ingenious. Are there any noticeable physical One last difference between the connec- differences between USB 2.0 & 3.0? tors: The edge of the USB 3.0 connector Yes, but not that noticeable. The cables is colored blue. used by USB 3.0 devices are slightly I want to buy a USB 3.0 device today but different. First, a USB 3.0 cable is thicker my computer doesn’t support USB 3.0 than a USB 2.0 cable – about the Not to worry. There are dozens of USB diameter of an Ethernet cable. This extra 3.0 capable devices available right now thickness is the result of adding four more and their prices are not noticeably higher wires to the cable along with additional than prices for USB 2.0 devices. Do you shielding. need a means to connect them to your In addition, the connectors on the ends of computer workstation or laptop? PCI the device cable are slightly different. cards for workstations and Express cords Previously, we stated that USB 2.0 & 3.0 for laptops are currently available. You devices are interconnectable. In order to don’t have to wait if you don’t want to. provide that interconnectability, the Is there anything about USB 3.0 that physical dimensions of the connectors are isn’t better than its predecessor? the same. But something new has been added to the connectors for USB 3.0. Well, there is one thing: A USB 2.0 device cable can be up to 16 feet long, but The end of the cable that plugs into the electrical issues limit the length of a USB computer or USB hub has a wide, flat 3.0 cable to 9.75 feet (3 meters). Most connector (USB “A” connector). In order users will be able to live with that. to create a place for the four extra wires in the cable to make contact, deep inside the connector, almost hidden from view, are four additional pins. If that connector is plugged into a USB 2.0 connection, the additional pins have nothing to make contact with. When plugged into a USB 3.0 connection, they make contact and complete an electrical circuit. If an electrical circuit is completed using the extra pins/wires, the device is treated as STAR Watch - 3 - Mar-Apr 2010 Microsoft Begins Work on Internet Explorer 9 Microsoft is well on its way to replacing its eventually lead to the installation of all kinds current web browser, Internet Explorer 8, with of malware. a completely new web browser, Internet Ex- Many of the Internet power users were be- plorer 9. After reading this statement, many coming alarmed by the fact that every new people will roll their eyes, sigh, and mutter to Internet application installed required some themselves “so what?”. This time, it will additional plug-in to be installed in order to really matter. IE9 will not be IE8 with a cou- make it work. Things were getting out of ple new bells and whistles. It will be a com- control. plete re-design of the core functions of Inter- net Explorer. While it was good that needs of web users were being addressed, no comprehensive Over the past few years, the things that can solutions to ever-increasing functionality were be done over the Internet have gotten to be being developed. What was needed was or- more sophisticated, but few web browsers ganization and standardization. In January, could keep up with the changes. In order to 2008, the first working draft that defined new provide the newest functionality to web users, browser functionality was accepted by the developers came up with all manner of web World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the browser add-ons and plug-ins to handle the group that tries to impose some sanity to new features that the browsers couldn’t. things that happen on the Internet. The new Consider just one example: Almost everyone standards for supported functionality were likes to watch streaming video over the Inter- included in the language specification for net. In order to watch that video, users must HyperText Markup Language version 5 install the appropriate software to play the (HTML5). streaming video – It might require Windows Fast-forward to recent history when Microsoft Media Player, Real Media Player, Quicktime, announced that it would use HTML5 lan- Macromedia Flash, or some lesser-known guage spec as the basis for its newest web product. For each product, it’s another in- browser: Internet Explorer version 9. Para- stall, another product to maintain, more disk phrasing some comments we made when we space tied up, and one more product to have talked about the release of the Vista operat- bugs that crash the computer. ing system: Don’t expect to see radical Besides all of those issues, there is a more changes right away if at all. The changes subtle problem: Users get into the habit of made are deep down in the architecture clicking to install new software without ques- where they really matter. IE9 will give devel- tioning whether it should be done. This can opers the ability to create web functionality STAR Watch - 4 - Mar-Apr 2010 that can be implemented without another specialized processor is involved in the plug-in. On day one, there will be very few creation and manipulation of almost every web applications that can operate in “native 2D or 3D object placed on a computer’s mode” in IE9. It will take some time. display screen. What will IE9 be able to do? Lots of things. Having a GPU in a computer allows the The developers at Microsoft stopped look- CPU to hand off tasks (that would be very ing back and began to think about the fu- taxing to it) to another hardware unit that ture of the World Wide Web. The IE9 prod- can do them more efficiently, allowing the uct will provide a solid platform from which CPU to concentrate on tasks that it is more to continue grow web functionality. suited to. With these two processors oper- Background… ating as a team, the computer is capable of significantly faster performance. Without an understanding of a couple com- puter concepts, IE9 would appear to be just Until IE9 came along, previous versions of another version of Microsoft Internet Ex- Internet Explorer did not use the GPU to plorer (yawn). But within this product, the any meaningful advantage. That left the developers have begun to take advantage CPU to do the majority of the graphics of several available technologies. work. As we discussed earlier the CPU can handle graphics processing – but not Many of the improvements are possible be- that well. IE9 takes every opportunity to cause of a fundamental change in how effectively use of the computer’s GPU and things get done. Most people are aware free up the CPU. that every computer has a “central process- ing unit” (CPU). The CPU does the things If you could implement IE9 today, that most people think of when they think of what will be different? computers: The CPU does arithmetic op- From a users point of view, it will appear erations and moves character data around that not much has changed.