The USB standard that all of us are currently using to power our mice, MP3 players, scanners, printers and assorted other peripherals is technically USB1.1. When it was originally introduced it was a heck of a lot faster than anything else around. Now USB1.1 is dated and ready to be usurped by a newer, faster standard you may have heard rumblings about. That new standard is called USB 2.0.

USB 2.0 operates at 480Mbps, about 40X times faster than USB 1.1 which currently works at a snails pace of just 12Mbps. For arguments sake, IEEE 1394 Firewire has transfer speeds of 400Mbps and has been around for a year or two now. Having had a taste of Firewire which has seen itself largely segmented to the digital video marketplace, USB2.0 is an exciting development. While there have been many devices launched under FireWire that enabled computers to have hard drives, CD-burners and similar devices located externally, the mainstream PC market never really seemed to embrace it - possibly due to the fact that it has become a standard on Mac computers.