WEBVTT - USB vs. Lightpeak 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:02.840 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. 0:00:03.160 --> 0:00:08.920 It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With 0:00:09.039 --> 0:00:17.960 tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone, 0:00:18.040 --> 0:00:20.880 Welcome to tech Stuff. My name is Chris Pollett. I'm 0:00:20.920 --> 0:00:23.119 an editor at how stuff works dot com. Sitting in 0:00:23.120 --> 0:00:25.720 across from me as usual is the person who forgot 0:00:25.760 --> 0:00:29.000 to put his phone on airplane mode. Senior writer Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:29.160 --> 0:00:32.159 The trained mind does not need a watch. Watches are 0:00:32.159 --> 0:00:38.159 a confidence trick invented by the Swiss. Oh that's an 0:00:38.159 --> 0:00:43.040 interesting thought. Sorry. Normally I would comment on the quote 0:00:43.080 --> 0:00:46.040 of the week or or of the podcast, and and 0:00:46.080 --> 0:00:49.720 I was thinking, oh, that's that's interesting. Sorry. Yeah, I 0:00:49.720 --> 0:00:51.400 don't really ever come by. I don't know if you 0:00:51.440 --> 0:00:53.880 recognize the actually thinking of the origin of that quote, 0:00:53.880 --> 0:00:56.080 but I'll tell you about it after the show. Okay, 0:00:56.240 --> 0:01:00.240 so today we're going to talk about some well I 0:01:00.280 --> 0:01:02.920 was gonna say competing technologies, but according to at least 0:01:02.920 --> 0:01:05.880 one party in this, it's not supposed to compete. But 0:01:05.959 --> 0:01:11.959 two different methods of transmitting data from computers to other devices, 0:01:12.080 --> 0:01:15.120 or even from the Internet to a computer, depending on 0:01:15.280 --> 0:01:18.160 how you're using them or uh, I would say, in 0:01:18.160 --> 0:01:22.120 in in one case, within the computer itself, yes, also possibility. 0:01:22.520 --> 0:01:26.119 Uh yeah, so we're talking about USB three point oh 0:01:26.160 --> 0:01:31.840 and Intel's light peak technology. Yes, one of these. You 0:01:31.840 --> 0:01:35.160 would sort of probably be expected to know. USB is 0:01:35.360 --> 0:01:38.440 pretty ubiquitous as it has been, uh since I would 0:01:38.440 --> 0:01:42.880 guess the late nineties or at least early two thousand's UM, 0:01:42.959 --> 0:01:46.680 which if I'm not mistaken, until actually had quite a 0:01:46.760 --> 0:01:49.920 bit of a responsibility in developing USB in the first place. Yeah. 0:01:49.920 --> 0:01:52.680 In fact, Intel worked quite hard on USB three point 0:01:52.720 --> 0:01:55.880 oh as well. Uh, it's the the universal serial bus 0:01:56.040 --> 0:01:57.800 is what we're talking about here. And and you know, 0:01:57.880 --> 0:02:00.680 you're probably familiar with these. You probably have devices that 0:02:00.760 --> 0:02:04.280 you hook up through your computer that have you have 0:02:04.640 --> 0:02:10.040 that same UM plug that goes into the computer ports. Uh, 0:02:10.880 --> 0:02:15.880 you know, everything from cameras to cell phones to uh 0:02:16.080 --> 0:02:22.320 external drives, UM two keyboards, mice, joysticks, all sorts of things. 0:02:22.360 --> 0:02:26.760 I've even seen some touchscreen displays that are USB connected 0:02:26.960 --> 0:02:29.400 connectible where you can have a second display up, which 0:02:29.480 --> 0:02:32.280 is a little interesting. It's actually that's that's probably taxing 0:02:32.400 --> 0:02:37.320 USB two point oh to its to its limits. But yeah, 0:02:37.360 --> 0:02:39.760 I mean this was just the purpose of the Universal 0:02:39.840 --> 0:02:44.080 Serial Bus was really to kind of help simplify ports 0:02:44.320 --> 0:02:48.520 on a computer. Right. Oh yes, but because I remember 0:02:48.560 --> 0:02:53.959 the days of Scuzzy. Um, yeah, Scuzzy for those of 0:02:54.040 --> 0:02:56.760 you who aren't familiar with it, good now, I know. 0:02:56.960 --> 0:02:59.679 Scuzzy actually was was pretty nice. It was speedy for 0:02:59.760 --> 0:03:04.560 its day. Um. But my my first two computers, being 0:03:04.639 --> 0:03:08.120 Commodore amigas, they used Scuzzy ports, or at least for 0:03:08.320 --> 0:03:10.240 most of the stuff that I had. Actually you would 0:03:10.960 --> 0:03:14.679 have parallel ports on those as well. UM. But the 0:03:14.760 --> 0:03:19.160 thing that annoyed me about Scuzzy, uh was that you 0:03:19.280 --> 0:03:24.760 could only have up to eight devices attached to your computer. Um. 0:03:25.080 --> 0:03:27.960 You would hook it up by this really thick cable. 0:03:28.880 --> 0:03:33.399 Um thick especially compared to to something like USB one 0:03:33.440 --> 0:03:37.000 and two anyway, and uh you had to actually set 0:03:37.080 --> 0:03:40.200 the address on the back of the device itself. I 0:03:40.280 --> 0:03:43.040 had um an external drive that I used to use, 0:03:43.360 --> 0:03:46.080 and you'd have to uh at my old job actually 0:03:46.640 --> 0:03:49.280 um where you would actually have to turn the thing 0:03:49.360 --> 0:03:54.160 around and uh, you know, actually change the number and 0:03:54.720 --> 0:03:56.600 yourself you could actually see the number it was. It 0:03:56.680 --> 0:03:58.680 was one of those little digital counters like you would 0:03:58.720 --> 0:04:02.320 see on a handheld counter. It's what kind of funny. Um, 0:04:02.520 --> 0:04:05.000 so you said it, you know one through eight. Uh, 0:04:05.160 --> 0:04:07.920 and if you had a competing and uh something on 0:04:08.040 --> 0:04:11.440 that address, then it would cause problems. Also, you had 0:04:11.480 --> 0:04:14.920 to have a terminator at the end on the last switch, 0:04:15.000 --> 0:04:19.280 so if you had don't call the I knew he 0:04:19.360 --> 0:04:21.640 was gonna go there. No, you had to have say 0:04:21.680 --> 0:04:24.400 you had a uh an external drive on your computer, 0:04:25.320 --> 0:04:28.159 it would have an outport as well, so it would 0:04:28.200 --> 0:04:29.920 have it would be out to the computer and then 0:04:29.920 --> 0:04:32.320 you would have an import and if nothing was coming 0:04:32.320 --> 0:04:34.360 into it, if you didn't plug in the terminator, the 0:04:34.400 --> 0:04:38.600 computer wouldn would theoretically continue to look for the other 0:04:38.680 --> 0:04:41.120 device which wasn't plugged in, and it would it would 0:04:41.120 --> 0:04:43.480 slow things down sometimes depending on what you were doing, 0:04:43.600 --> 0:04:45.680 cause it not to work. Um. So you had to 0:04:45.760 --> 0:04:48.600 have this little uh it's kind of hard to describe it. 0:04:48.640 --> 0:04:51.240 It was almost like a dongle, little plastic and metal 0:04:51.320 --> 0:04:53.360 device that you would shove in there that you know 0:04:53.680 --> 0:04:56.200 and lock into place that it would know, No, there's 0:04:56.200 --> 0:04:59.000 no other devices on here. You have the two external drives. 0:04:59.200 --> 0:05:01.440 One of them is you know, number four. Number one 0:05:01.480 --> 0:05:03.800 of them is number seven. You know, I know that 0:05:03.920 --> 0:05:05.880 this is the stuff that's on there. And the best 0:05:05.960 --> 0:05:08.240 part of all, if you wanted to add something, you 0:05:08.320 --> 0:05:11.320 had to turn off your computer, turn off the device. Uh. 0:05:11.400 --> 0:05:14.240 Some would even say unplugged the devices, although it never 0:05:14.320 --> 0:05:17.240 seemed to bother mind rather than the four computers that 0:05:17.279 --> 0:05:20.560 I blew up when I didn't I'm kidding, but yeah, 0:05:20.600 --> 0:05:23.160 you're supposed to turn off everything before you you know, 0:05:23.320 --> 0:05:26.640 plugged or unplugged any of the devices into this guzzy chain. 0:05:27.760 --> 0:05:31.600 And uh, my first computer with USB was the very 0:05:31.720 --> 0:05:33.520 very first iMac. I actually got it on the day 0:05:33.560 --> 0:05:36.279 it came out, and uh, it was the first computer 0:05:36.360 --> 0:05:38.760 I had to have USB. And the idea of being 0:05:38.800 --> 0:05:41.960 able to hot swap devices and have up to a 0:05:42.040 --> 0:05:47.200 hundred twenty seven instead of eight, it was so nice. Yeah. 0:05:47.279 --> 0:05:48.920 Hot swapping, by the way, in case you don't know, 0:05:49.080 --> 0:05:51.640 that just means that you can unplug or plug in 0:05:51.880 --> 0:05:54.920 a device at any time, whether your computers on or off, 0:05:55.640 --> 0:05:59.400 and that in theory, nothing bad should happen it. What 0:05:59.520 --> 0:06:02.000 should have but is that the computer should check to 0:06:02.080 --> 0:06:03.839 see what kind of device has just been hooked up 0:06:03.880 --> 0:06:06.000 to it and whether or not the computer has the 0:06:06.080 --> 0:06:08.880 correct driver to interact with that device, and if not, 0:06:09.080 --> 0:06:11.440 it prompts you to either you know, load the driver 0:06:11.640 --> 0:06:14.360 or try and search for it. Yep. And that's another 0:06:14.400 --> 0:06:17.000 one of the nice things about USB is that it's 0:06:17.720 --> 0:06:20.839 you can find it on Windows machines, you can find 0:06:20.839 --> 0:06:23.080 it on Linux machines, you can find it on Macintosh, 0:06:23.720 --> 0:06:27.120 and for the most part, you can buy peripherals that 0:06:27.160 --> 0:06:30.240 will work with all three or at least two of those, 0:06:30.320 --> 0:06:32.320 as long as there is a driver available for them. 0:06:32.360 --> 0:06:35.000 And that wasn't necessarily the case before. So USB is 0:06:35.040 --> 0:06:40.400 really kind of um made everything a lot easier, and 0:06:40.520 --> 0:06:45.000 fire FireWire two to an extent, but FireWire didn't catch 0:06:45.040 --> 0:06:48.479 on like USB did. The FireWire was mostly the domain 0:06:48.600 --> 0:06:53.320 of Apple. Um. Yeah, the the sony for example, with 0:06:53.400 --> 0:06:55.760 the USB thing, and and the idea that you can 0:06:55.880 --> 0:06:59.320 use the same peripherals on different devices. I have a 0:06:59.400 --> 0:07:02.640 couple of my own that I've swapped out between my 0:07:02.760 --> 0:07:07.600 Mac and my uh my PC, including and this this 0:07:07.760 --> 0:07:09.520 got a lot of mirth off the internet when I 0:07:09.600 --> 0:07:12.400 took a picture of it. Uh A, I've used my 0:07:12.600 --> 0:07:16.800 Mac keyboard to hook up to my work PC because, 0:07:17.000 --> 0:07:20.120 as we all know, the left side of my keyboard 0:07:20.160 --> 0:07:23.760 on my work PC doesn't work. So and that was 0:07:23.880 --> 0:07:26.120 the USB keyboard that I happened to have at home 0:07:26.240 --> 0:07:27.880 was my Mac keyboard, and I was like, huh, I 0:07:27.960 --> 0:07:29.760 wonder if this will work, And sure enough it does. 0:07:30.240 --> 0:07:33.760 The Apple button doesn't do anything. But other than that, um, 0:07:34.120 --> 0:07:36.720 and I've I've hooked up a PC keyboard to my Mac. 0:07:36.880 --> 0:07:40.240 So there you go. So at any rate, the USB 0:07:41.360 --> 0:07:43.760 solution was to try and cut down on all these 0:07:43.800 --> 0:07:45.320 different ports, and of course there are a lot more 0:07:45.400 --> 0:07:47.520 besides just the scuzzy I mean you had serial ports, 0:07:47.560 --> 0:07:50.400 you had parallel ports, you had the keyboard and mice 0:07:51.040 --> 0:07:53.360 jacks that you would have to insert the you know, 0:07:53.560 --> 0:07:55.840 you plug your your mouth or your keyboard in. They 0:07:56.040 --> 0:07:58.800 have those little round plugs if you remember. You now 0:07:58.800 --> 0:08:00.640 you've got a lot of USB one so you don't 0:08:00.640 --> 0:08:02.720 have to worry about that kind of stuff. Um, and 0:08:02.800 --> 0:08:05.400 it's simplified things a bit, right, Yeah, yeah, yeah, I 0:08:05.520 --> 0:08:08.760 was thinking about that too. Um. The nine pin connectors 0:08:08.800 --> 0:08:10.520 that you used to see on the old Attaris where 0:08:10.600 --> 0:08:14.840 the ports that also worked with the Amiga. So all 0:08:14.880 --> 0:08:17.240 my um, I could use my joysticks and stuff to 0:08:17.280 --> 0:08:19.480 play games with. But now if I were going to 0:08:19.560 --> 0:08:22.880 do that on a Windows or a Macro, a Linux machine. 0:08:23.160 --> 0:08:25.320 You could buy a USB joystick and it would work 0:08:25.480 --> 0:08:27.240 across all of them. You have the same port. You 0:08:27.280 --> 0:08:30.000 don't have to mess with all that stuff anymore. That's nice. Now. 0:08:30.400 --> 0:08:33.280 One of the limitations now we're currently the standard currently 0:08:33.400 --> 0:08:36.320 is USB two point oh. Yes, that's watching away for years. 0:08:36.440 --> 0:08:38.880 Yes exactly, it has been that way for years. Uh 0:08:38.960 --> 0:08:41.080 and and we've known that USB three point oh. They 0:08:41.800 --> 0:08:44.320 finalized the standard for that in two thousand and eight, 0:08:44.800 --> 0:08:47.640 but we still haven't really seen a wide rollout, and 0:08:47.720 --> 0:08:50.800 we'll probably get into a little controversy about that in 0:08:50.880 --> 0:08:54.640 a little bit. But the uh there, there's some limitations 0:08:54.679 --> 0:08:57.760 to USB two point oh. One of which is the 0:08:57.880 --> 0:09:00.719 speed UM. Now it US be two point That is 0:09:00.760 --> 0:09:04.679 fast enough for most regular applications, like if you want 0:09:04.720 --> 0:09:07.559 to use a keyboard or joystick or a mouse. The 0:09:07.760 --> 0:09:11.040 bandwidth is fine for that, you know, it's you don't 0:09:11.080 --> 0:09:13.360 need something that's going to be super fast. And the bandwidth, 0:09:13.360 --> 0:09:15.520 by the way, is four hundred and eighty megabits per 0:09:15.600 --> 0:09:19.520 second UM. But if you want to do something like 0:09:19.640 --> 0:09:21.760 back up your hard drive to an external drive and 0:09:21.800 --> 0:09:24.920 you're using a USB cord and you've got a massive 0:09:25.000 --> 0:09:28.080 hard drive, right, you know, yeah, it's gonna take some time. 0:09:28.360 --> 0:09:32.199 So you've got like a hard drive that's like you know, 0:09:32.440 --> 0:09:34.240 you could have up to a terabyte, right, I mean 0:09:34.800 --> 0:09:38.440 or more really, but you want to back that up 0:09:38.440 --> 0:09:40.520 because we we always say you should back up your 0:09:40.520 --> 0:09:44.160 hard drive. One of the things that makes that less 0:09:44.320 --> 0:09:47.079 than easy is the fact that are a lot of 0:09:47.120 --> 0:09:50.360 our cables don't have the bandwidth capacity to make that 0:09:50.520 --> 0:09:53.240 data transfer at a very fast clip, so you have 0:09:53.360 --> 0:09:55.520 to wait quite a bit while you do it. It's 0:09:55.520 --> 0:09:57.839 always nice to schedule at for the middle of the 0:09:57.920 --> 0:10:00.520 night when you're asleep theoretically, but you're asleep in the 0:10:00.559 --> 0:10:02.679 middle of the night. Man, I kind of figured that 0:10:02.760 --> 0:10:07.120 stuff out. So, uh so USB three point oh ups 0:10:07.200 --> 0:10:11.640 that speed and by ten times actually four point eight 0:10:11.720 --> 0:10:15.560 gigabytes or gigabits sorry four points Yeah. As soon as 0:10:15.600 --> 0:10:17.520 I said, I was like, well, you need to correct 0:10:17.600 --> 0:10:20.960 that before we get letters four point eight gigabits per second, 0:10:21.559 --> 0:10:24.120 and uh so that's yeah, it's ten times the speed 0:10:24.160 --> 0:10:29.240 of u USB two point oh. And they talk the 0:10:29.440 --> 0:10:31.719 I remember hearing things like, well, at that speed, you 0:10:31.800 --> 0:10:35.000 could you could rip a Blu ray disc and just 0:10:35.760 --> 0:10:40.839 a matter of moments comparatively speaking, like thirty seconds. So 0:10:41.800 --> 0:10:45.600 there's this amazing ability to uh to transfer data at 0:10:45.600 --> 0:10:49.640 a really good clip. And just like USB two point 0:10:49.679 --> 0:10:53.839 oh uh, it is capable of powering devices as well. 0:10:54.040 --> 0:10:58.160 There there are um enough, the way the cables work. 0:10:58.240 --> 0:11:01.000 There are four cables in USB two point yes, there 0:11:01.040 --> 0:11:03.920 are eight in USB three point oh. Yes. Now two 0:11:04.000 --> 0:11:07.040 of those cables are for ones of power cable, ones 0:11:07.040 --> 0:11:11.000 of ground cable. Yeah. Um yeah, I had I had 0:11:11.040 --> 0:11:13.680 gotten my notes from from Norman Chan and Maximum PC 0:11:14.120 --> 0:11:17.280 who wrote a nifty article. It really well. The title 0:11:17.280 --> 0:11:19.079 says it all everything you need to know about USB 0:11:19.200 --> 0:11:22.079 three point oh plus first spliced cable photos. They actually 0:11:22.120 --> 0:11:25.840 have pictures. He said that there are five new cables 0:11:26.120 --> 0:11:31.120 are yes, um but yeah, it's basically you're transmitting more 0:11:31.200 --> 0:11:35.480 information over that distance. So I don't mean to contradict you. No, no, no, 0:11:35.800 --> 0:11:37.640 that's right. I would rather I would rather have the 0:11:37.679 --> 0:11:40.800 correct information. Well, here's here's how I understand it. So 0:11:41.000 --> 0:11:43.880 USB two point oh. One of the other limitations is 0:11:43.960 --> 0:11:47.200 that it does this thing called polling, which is where 0:11:47.320 --> 0:11:50.120 you know you can only so do you like your 0:11:50.200 --> 0:11:52.599 data in this location where than you I shouldn't have 0:11:52.840 --> 0:11:54.679 pause to let you say something. I can tell you 0:11:54.840 --> 0:11:57.679 had something to say. But respondents say they want their 0:11:57.720 --> 0:12:00.480 data on this hard drive at any rate. Worry about that, 0:12:00.559 --> 0:12:03.199 ladies and gentlemen. Uh No, the USB two point it 0:12:03.240 --> 0:12:06.400 can only send data in one direction at a time, right, exactly. 0:12:06.600 --> 0:12:09.839 So you're like, let's say you've got a smartphone that 0:12:09.960 --> 0:12:12.959 you're using, and you want to move files to and 0:12:13.080 --> 0:12:15.920 from the smartphone, So you say, pulling pictures off the 0:12:15.960 --> 0:12:19.000 smartphone and you're putting music onto it. Right that that 0:12:19.200 --> 0:12:21.440 that could happen. You can't do both of those things 0:12:21.480 --> 0:12:24.080 at the same time using USB two point oh. Right, 0:12:24.080 --> 0:12:26.040 You're gonna have to do one first and then the other. 0:12:26.280 --> 0:12:29.000 Right now. USB three point oh, because of the additional 0:12:29.120 --> 0:12:34.400 wires that they've added, they've the standard allows UH two 0:12:34.720 --> 0:12:38.040 a well, simultaneous transmission of data both to and from 0:12:38.160 --> 0:12:41.520 the device at the same time. I said that simultaneously 0:12:41.640 --> 0:12:43.679 in the same time. This is what happens when we 0:12:43.800 --> 0:12:48.400 record in the morning. Oh my goodness, people. But but yes, 0:12:48.480 --> 0:12:50.599 you can actually see these these lines now if you 0:12:50.920 --> 0:12:52.920 if you look at the end of a regular USB 0:12:53.760 --> 0:12:58.199 uh connector, you'll see, um it sort of reminds me 0:12:58.240 --> 0:13:00.839 about sandwich cookie in a way, because half of it 0:13:01.280 --> 0:13:04.480 is an open space and the other half is seems solid. 0:13:04.960 --> 0:13:07.800 And that's how that's what frustrates so many people about it. 0:13:07.840 --> 0:13:10.160 They know that they've got the cable, they're reaching around 0:13:10.200 --> 0:13:12.720 the back end of their of their PC and they 0:13:12.760 --> 0:13:16.280 know they've got it in the slot, but the closed 0:13:16.400 --> 0:13:17.679 end is on the closed end, and you have to 0:13:17.720 --> 0:13:20.840 flip the plug over and then find the the connector again, 0:13:20.880 --> 0:13:23.199 and it's it's frustrating. It's not that big a deal, 0:13:23.320 --> 0:13:25.160 but if you look at it, you'll know what I'm 0:13:25.200 --> 0:13:27.880 talking about. But on the USB three connector, you can 0:13:27.960 --> 0:13:31.199 actually see where the other wires it plugs in the 0:13:31.280 --> 0:13:35.000 same way, it's backward compatible as far as using support. Now, 0:13:35.480 --> 0:13:38.520 you would actually need a USB three card on your 0:13:38.559 --> 0:13:41.880 computer for it to use USB three. But let's see 0:13:41.880 --> 0:13:44.480 you have an older computer and somebody lent you a 0:13:44.640 --> 0:13:48.200 USB three cable. You could still use that on your 0:13:48.240 --> 0:13:50.120 computer and you would be able to see where the 0:13:50.160 --> 0:13:54.360 wire connectors are on the closed off looking in, they're 0:13:54.360 --> 0:13:57.440 actually visible to you, so you could tell just by 0:13:57.480 --> 0:13:59.480 looking at it whether it's a USB two or USB 0:13:59.600 --> 0:14:03.240 three chord. Right and and just to clarify a little bit, 0:14:03.320 --> 0:14:06.319 you can use USB three on a USB two ports, 0:14:06.400 --> 0:14:08.319 a USB three cable, and a USB two port, like 0:14:08.400 --> 0:14:10.719 Chris was saying, but it will, of course it will. 0:14:10.840 --> 0:14:13.600 The data will move at USB two speeds right because 0:14:13.640 --> 0:14:15.599 it doesn't have the connectors to make it work. And 0:14:15.600 --> 0:14:17.360 I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be confusing. No, no, 0:14:17.520 --> 0:14:18.920 not at all. I just wanted to make sure I 0:14:19.280 --> 0:14:23.640 covered that. Uh. But the idea that it being backwards compatible, 0:14:23.720 --> 0:14:26.600 that stretches back to USB two, which was also backwards 0:14:26.680 --> 0:14:29.400 compatible with USB one. I mean you want to you 0:14:29.440 --> 0:14:32.760 want to make sure that you don't just wipe out 0:14:32.880 --> 0:14:36.360 someone's entire Like the whole purposes make life simpler. You 0:14:36.360 --> 0:14:38.480 don't want to make it more complicated by saying, okay, 0:14:38.520 --> 0:14:41.600 all that stuff that you had no longer works. So 0:14:43.560 --> 0:14:46.520 now that we have these devices that require lots of 0:14:46.640 --> 0:14:49.480 data to transfer at high speeds, let's say that you 0:14:49.600 --> 0:14:51.600 want to back up your hard drive, or that you've 0:14:51.680 --> 0:14:54.560 captured a bunch of high definition video and you want 0:14:54.600 --> 0:14:59.120 to pull that from a camera onto your computer. Uh. 0:14:59.400 --> 0:15:01.560 USB two, I know, is starting to look a little slow. 0:15:02.080 --> 0:15:04.280 And that's why USB three point oh was was being 0:15:04.360 --> 0:15:09.520 put into play. It's also called superspeed USB because USB 0:15:09.600 --> 0:15:14.880 two point it was called speed USB. So superspeed is 0:15:15.040 --> 0:15:17.280 the idea that it's gonna go much much faster, it's 0:15:17.280 --> 0:15:20.640 gonna continue to power these devices. It actually draws more 0:15:20.720 --> 0:15:24.200 power than than USB two point oh. USB two point oh, 0:15:24.280 --> 0:15:27.440 I think had a maximum of five milli amps and 0:15:27.720 --> 0:15:31.600 USB three point oh is nine miller amps. Um so 0:15:31.800 --> 0:15:34.680 for powered buses, it's it's that's a means it's gonna 0:15:34.680 --> 0:15:37.840 be able to power more power hungry devices. Yes, definitely, 0:15:38.120 --> 0:15:41.760 So that's kind of the story in USB three point oh. 0:15:41.840 --> 0:15:45.280 Let's talk about light peak for a second. Okay, I 0:15:45.360 --> 0:15:49.400 think it's in transition. I think it's important to note 0:15:49.480 --> 0:15:53.560 that USB three if and if if I'm not mistaken, 0:15:54.120 --> 0:15:57.400 USB three is is only external, like you're going to 0:15:57.440 --> 0:16:00.840 hook up external peripherals with USB fight I know. However, 0:16:00.960 --> 0:16:03.920 white peak can be used on a motherboard to connect 0:16:04.000 --> 0:16:07.880 devices inside your computer. Is that yeah? Or or you 0:16:07.920 --> 0:16:10.040 can use it as an external as well. This was 0:16:10.120 --> 0:16:14.920 sort of Intel's take on how can we simplify these uh, 0:16:15.200 --> 0:16:18.680 these ports even further than USB three point oh because 0:16:18.800 --> 0:16:22.320 USB three uh, you know, there's certain devices you can 0:16:22.360 --> 0:16:25.520 connect to like the external hard drives or the high 0:16:25.560 --> 0:16:28.880 definition cameras, but it still does not have the bandwidth 0:16:29.240 --> 0:16:33.680 necessary for other applications like driving a high definition monitor, 0:16:33.920 --> 0:16:38.680 or or replacing an HDM MY chord um or replacing 0:16:38.720 --> 0:16:41.960 the Ethernet chord. You couldn't do that with USB three. 0:16:42.480 --> 0:16:44.520 The bandwidth isn't there. It's not really designed for that. 0:16:45.000 --> 0:16:46.680 So Intel was saying, well, what if we were to 0:16:46.800 --> 0:16:51.200 develop a technology that would allow us to essentially boil 0:16:51.280 --> 0:16:54.040 it down to one cable for data. You know, you 0:16:54.120 --> 0:16:57.080 could just have the same sort of cable. Essentially, your 0:16:57.160 --> 0:16:59.280 your computer would look like it would have a whole 0:16:59.320 --> 0:17:02.280 bunch of the same ports, and in theory, you could 0:17:02.320 --> 0:17:05.199 plug any cable into any of those ports and then 0:17:05.280 --> 0:17:09.200 into any compatible device and it works. So you might have, 0:17:09.960 --> 0:17:12.320 you know, five cables, they're all identical, and one of 0:17:12.400 --> 0:17:15.600 them is going to an external display, and one of 0:17:15.640 --> 0:17:19.080 them is going to your high high definition camera, one 0:17:19.160 --> 0:17:23.040 of them is going to a an external hard drive, etcetera. 0:17:23.600 --> 0:17:27.520 So the way they decided to try and implement this 0:17:27.800 --> 0:17:32.920 is through fiber optics. There there's a chip that is 0:17:33.160 --> 0:17:37.639 central to this system that UH would be installed on 0:17:37.760 --> 0:17:43.880 a motherboard and would transmit it would essentially translate binary 0:17:44.240 --> 0:17:49.320 data into optical data using a laser and UM fiber 0:17:49.359 --> 0:17:52.640 optic lines. I'm impressed that you managed to hold off 0:17:52.880 --> 0:17:58.360 saying laser. You know I did that to myself. UM. Yeah, 0:17:58.440 --> 0:18:02.000 I mean that's if you remember, we did a podcast 0:18:02.400 --> 0:18:07.520 not terribly longer last year on fiber optics UM and UH. 0:18:08.240 --> 0:18:11.640 Fiber optics are a much different animal as far as 0:18:11.760 --> 0:18:15.160 the way they transmit information. They're going by light UM 0:18:16.080 --> 0:18:20.800 and they do have some advantages. UM. Now, when we 0:18:20.920 --> 0:18:23.880 talked about fiber optics in that podcast, we were talking 0:18:23.880 --> 0:18:26.399 about how delicate the lines are. You have to be 0:18:26.560 --> 0:18:29.000 very careful with that. Well, I did some research on 0:18:29.200 --> 0:18:31.760 light Peak for the podcast, and and tell claims that 0:18:31.880 --> 0:18:34.399 you can even tie the cable in a knot and 0:18:34.520 --> 0:18:37.879 it will still be able to transmit information very very 0:18:37.960 --> 0:18:42.520 quickly without you know, having to worry about damaging the 0:18:42.680 --> 0:18:45.320 lines on the light peak transmitter. And that's funny because 0:18:45.560 --> 0:18:48.639 light peak may if you may never have heard of it, 0:18:48.720 --> 0:18:51.879 but this is something that's been in development for pretty 0:18:51.960 --> 0:18:55.000 long time now. So it's like, actually, we were expecting 0:18:55.040 --> 0:18:58.680 to see products launching with light Peak, perhaps as early 0:18:58.760 --> 0:19:01.880 as late, but that didn't happen, and now we're hearing 0:19:01.920 --> 0:19:06.639 about it coming out in And the idea here is that, 0:19:07.440 --> 0:19:10.080 at least the initial idea is that you're using fiber 0:19:10.119 --> 0:19:14.720 optics to transmit data the there'd be two fiber optic 0:19:14.880 --> 0:19:20.280 lines that would be dedicated to transmitting data out and 0:19:20.440 --> 0:19:23.440 two that would be dedicated to transmitting data in. So 0:19:23.840 --> 0:19:27.160 just like USB three point out, you could have simultaneous 0:19:27.720 --> 0:19:32.000 communication from both the device and the computer. And uh, 0:19:32.520 --> 0:19:37.360 the theoretical starting speed for light peak, and I say 0:19:37.400 --> 0:19:40.520 theoretical just because it hasn't hit the market really yet 0:19:41.000 --> 0:19:43.720 is ten gigabits per second. So that's more than twice 0:19:43.760 --> 0:19:46.560 as fast as USB three point out. Indeed it is. 0:19:47.520 --> 0:19:50.959 And uh that at that speed you still can't necessarily 0:19:51.119 --> 0:19:54.200 replace things like HDMI chords. You would still need to 0:19:54.240 --> 0:19:57.080 get a little faster than that. But Intel says that 0:19:57.240 --> 0:20:00.639 within ten years that top speed will re a peak 0:20:00.760 --> 0:20:04.399 of around a hundred gigabits per second. Now, at that speed, 0:20:04.760 --> 0:20:09.119 you're talking about using the potential for using this technology 0:20:09.160 --> 0:20:11.600 for everything from the cable that would go from your 0:20:11.640 --> 0:20:14.960 modem to your computer, so you would use the same 0:20:15.000 --> 0:20:17.520 sort of cable to hook up to your Internet connection 0:20:17.560 --> 0:20:20.359 as you would to your external hard drive or to 0:20:20.480 --> 0:20:23.239 another monitor, which is kind of a cool idea, right. 0:20:23.320 --> 0:20:25.960 You no longer have to worry about, oh gosh, I 0:20:26.040 --> 0:20:28.920 need this one specific cable, where the heck is that? 0:20:29.200 --> 0:20:31.080 And you know, you start hunting through all your cables. 0:20:31.119 --> 0:20:33.439 Now you just have a pile o cables that are 0:20:33.480 --> 0:20:36.200 all the same and you just grab one, which is 0:20:36.200 --> 0:20:40.760 a great idea. The there's some limitations to light peak 0:20:40.840 --> 0:20:43.640 as well. One of those is that we don't really 0:20:43.760 --> 0:20:49.320 know how light peak would provide power to devices, right 0:20:49.359 --> 0:20:51.560 because you have a lot of devices that either charge 0:20:51.680 --> 0:20:55.879 through USB or the The USB provides the power that 0:20:55.960 --> 0:20:58.480 the device needs to to operate as well as the 0:20:58.720 --> 0:21:03.120 data transfer, and light Peak on its own cannot really 0:21:03.200 --> 0:21:05.440 transmit power because you're talking about fiber optics, it's just 0:21:05.600 --> 0:21:09.360 light um and by light, we're using like I said, 0:21:09.440 --> 0:21:15.480 lasers and little photovoltaic type sensors. So there would have 0:21:15.600 --> 0:21:18.399 to be some sort of either external power source to 0:21:18.440 --> 0:21:22.479 power these devices. Um, So you'd have one wire essentially 0:21:22.560 --> 0:21:24.800 going in to provide power and another wire coming in 0:21:24.960 --> 0:21:27.520 that would be the light peak wire, or you would 0:21:27.520 --> 0:21:32.120 have to pair light peak with copper wire of some sort. Yeah, 0:21:32.400 --> 0:21:35.160 because of course, uh, you know, the USB is using 0:21:35.240 --> 0:21:38.840 copper as it is in order to to do what 0:21:39.000 --> 0:21:42.040 it does. So yeah, it seems like you would have 0:21:42.200 --> 0:21:46.680 to have something like that simply to avoid, um, you 0:21:46.760 --> 0:21:49.200 know that the charging having to worry about the charging issue. 0:21:49.200 --> 0:21:52.560 And people have come to expect that with USB and 0:21:52.720 --> 0:21:57.160 FireWire both being the connectors have choice for the majority 0:21:57.200 --> 0:22:00.440 of electronics over the past decade or so. Um, I 0:22:00.520 --> 0:22:02.199 think people sort of expect that, and they'll go, hey, 0:22:02.280 --> 0:22:05.280 this is great, it's really fast, but now I have 0:22:05.400 --> 0:22:07.760 to plug it in while I'm you know, I think 0:22:07.840 --> 0:22:11.600 that that may throw people a little bit. Um. And 0:22:11.760 --> 0:22:14.240 and just while we've been talking, I did a little 0:22:14.440 --> 0:22:17.080