Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard developed in the mid-1990s that defines the cables, connectors and communications protocols used in a bus for connection, communication and power supply between computers and electronic devices.
USB was designed to standardize the connection of computer peripherals, such as keyboards, pointing devices, digital cameras, printers, portable media players, disk drives and network adapters to personal computers, both to communicate and to supply electric power. It has become commonplace on other devices, such as smartphones, PDAs and video game consoles. USB has effectively replaced a variety of earlier interfaces, such as serial and parallel ports, as well as separate power chargers for portable devices.
As of 2008, approximately 6 billion USB ports and interfaces were in the global marketplace, and about 2 billion were being sold each year.
Read more about Universal Serial Bus: History, System Design, Device Classes, Physical Appearance, Cabling, Power, Signaling, Transmission Rates, Latency, Communication, Interoperability, Related Standards
Famous quotes containing the words universal, serial and/or bus:
“I have been maintaining that the meaning of the word ‘ought’ and other moral words is such that a person who uses them commits himself thereby to a universal rule. This is the thesis of universalizability.”
—Richard M. Hare (b. 1919)
“And the serial continues:
Pain, expiation, delight, more pain,
A frieze that lengthens continually, in the lucky way
Friezes do, and no plot is produced,
Nothing you could hang an identifying question on.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“An actor rides in a bus or railroad train; he sees a movement and applies it to a new role. A woman in agony of spirit might turn her head just so; a man in deep humiliation probably would wring his hands in such a way. From straws like these, drawn from completely different sources, the fabric of a character may be built. The whole garment in which the actor hides himself is made of small externals of observation fitted to his conception of a role.”
—Eleanor Robson Belmont (1878–1979)