USB

Despite the fact that optical cables transmit data far faster than copper wire, wire is still the primary medium for communication on computer chips, and between computers and devices through USB cables. But Intel hopes to change all that soon with their new Light Peak connection system.

Nothing motivates like peer pressure, whether it’s friends goading you into one shot too many or friends tracking your power consumption on Twitter. That’s the thinking that led Limor Fried and PopSci contributing editor Phil Torrone, circuit wizards who run the electronics-kit seller adafruit.com, to cross a small power monitor with an XBee wireless home-automation module and a few lines of code.

That Universal Serial Bus port in your computer is about to get an upgrade. You know, the one where you plug in all your external hard drives, digital cameras, MP3 players, thumb drives, and USB heated-slippers? If you bought your computer any time after the year 2000, it probably came equipped with a USB 2.0 port. However, later this year computers will start shipping that include USB 3.0 ports, which can transmit data up to ten times as fast. Here's what to expect.

Ever lose your cellphone charger? When your doomed search for friends or family with a phone of similar brand/vintage eventually fails, it's off to the third-party charger vendor where confusion and high prices await.

We can all agree, then, that proprietary charger plugs are among the larger pains in the respective behinds of cellphone users everywhere. But not so anymore in Europe: the EU is leading the way to create a standard micro-USB charger for all cellphones sold.

I/O, I/O, it's off to develop I go!

Sure, it might sound cheesy, but the new UBW32 is a low-cost development board that sports 78 I/O pins! Roughly the size of a big stick of gum, the UBW32 is literally ringed with I/O pins.

Have you ever found yourself wishing that your Eee PC had a better trackpad, or maybe even a joystick? Well, the Atmel AVR USB key might be your answer.

Including a built-in SD card reader in the ASUS Eee PC was just one of many smart decisions that went into the lovable little portable (are you listening Apple?). Without a large hard disk, memory cards are crucial for any Eee user wanting to store large media collections, keep tons of applications, or boot multiple operating systems, allowing for a virtually unlimited data storage system without any external add-ons.

It never fails; you want to upgrade your aging PC, but you still need that archaic RS-232C serial port for controlling your Parallax Boe-Bot, using that serial mouse, getting online via your trusted Hayes ACCURA V.90 modem, and, even, programming your Pfaff 2140 sewing machine. Apple Boot Camp enlistees can run into a similar RS-232C port quagmire using an older Windows app on a MacBook Air.

A: Tagging is the act of assigning your own keywords to things online-photos, blog entries, bookmarks-so that you can easily categorize, locate, and share them in the future. One of the best examples is del.icio.us, which lets you save Web bookmarks to a page on the site instead of to a file stashed away on your computer. This way, you can access them from anywhere and let other people see what sites you like.