USB 3.0 Thumbdrives

Jump drives, USB drives, thumbdrives, whatever we call them, they’re pretty useful. I haven’t touched, let alone used a 3 1/2 inch diskette in years, and I only occasionally cut a CD (and then just to avoid upload boredom).

So, this new USB 3.0 stuff being introduced in 2008 is very exciting.
While USB 3.0 is backwards compatible with USB 2.0 that we know so well now, it offers amazing improvements. The biggest difference is in improved transfer speeds – ten times faster. Put into more easily undertstood terms:
1. It takes about 2/10ths of a second to tranfer one song, longer for an audiobook. With USB 3.0 we’re talking 3,000 songs in a minute (vs. 10+ minutes before). Libraries could lend music and audiobook collections instead of just singletons! Imagine lending an IT support library – can even fit the word Dummies or Idiots and our logo on a thumbdrive?
2. A 27GB HD movie would take 15+ minutes in 2.0 and will take less than 70 seconds in 3.0.
3. Ultimately you could transfer an entire CD (600 MB) in a few seconds. That means a small database relevant to a specific course, 3 hours of English language language instruction or ppodcast storyhours in 20 seconds.
Multimedia services in libraries will be transformed.
Lots of libraries sell USB drives to their users. Many have made the USB drive visible on the front of their CPU’s or using cables or octopuses from the hidden dirves on teh back of the CPU. Either way, it appears that this is the norm. Someone once told me that you know something is normal when it goes on a keychain.
Libraries can’t, with a straight face, claim to be bridging the digital divide, if we don’t support the basics of document portability – Google Docs, Zoho, USB access, etc.
USB 3.0 wll put the whole works on steroids. (I’m afraid to imagine what’s next…)
Cheers,
Stephen