At CES in January, we reported that USB 3.0 had been spotted in the wild. I have just recently learned that the latest version of our favorite compatible connector is on the way.

So what will USB 3.0 mean? Faster speeds, for one thing. Sources say it is 10 times faster. That means that downloading a document that takes 14 minutes to download will take only 70 seconds.

Of course, you will need to have a USB 3.0 cable as well as a USB 3.0 connector for these speeds. There is also talk of better power management and optical cabling, but that is all I know about that.

In case you are wondering, USB 3.0 is backwards compatible with USB 2.0. As you can see, the plug on the left doesn’t look too different than our current 2.0 cables, but the one on the right is designed for mobile devices like cellular phones and music players.

The wait isn’t entirely over, as USB 3.0 will be available one week from now. However, the first ever USB 3.0 Physical Layer Device will be available for demonstration at the SuperSpeed USB Developer’s Conference in San Jose. This historic device is the Quasar PHY, designed to “sync and go” with external hard drives, media players, HD camcorders, and phones.

So I guess the big question is how long it will take before every USB enabled device is a 3.0. I suppose that time will tell, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we see it as a standard feature in the near future.

Source 1 and Source 2