USB 3.0

On September 18, 2007, Pat Gelsinger demonstrated USB 3.0 at the Intel Developer Forum. The USB 3.0 Promoter Group announced on November 17, 2008, that version 3.0 of the specification had been completed and was transitioned to the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF), the managing body of USB specifications. This move effectively opened the spec to hardware developers for implementation in future products. The first USB 3.0 ports were featured on the Asus P6X58 motherboard; however this board was canceled before production. 

Features

•    A new major feature is the SuperSpeed bus, which provides a fourth transfer mode at 4.8 Gbit/s. The raw throughput is 4 Gbit/s, and the specification considers it reasonable to achieve 3.2 Gbit/s (0.4 GByte/s or 400 MByte/s) or more after protocol overhead.
•    When operating in SuperSpeed mode, full-duplex signaling occurs over 2 differential pairs separate from the non-SuperSpeed differential pair. This results in USB 3.0 cables containing 2 wires for power and ground, 2 wires for non-SuperSpeed data, and 4 wires for SuperSpeed data, and a shield (not required in previous specifications).
•    To accommodate the additional pins for SuperSpeed mode, the physical form factors for USB 3.0 plugs and receptacles have been modified from those used in previous versions. Standard-A cables have extended heads where the SuperSpeed connectors extend beyond and slightly above the legacy connectors. Similarly, the Standard-A receptacle is deeper to accept these new connectors. A legacy Standard-A cable will operate as intended and will never interact with the SuperSpeed connectors, ensuring backward compatibility. The Standard-B modifications could not be made as elegantly; the SuperSpeed connectors had to be placed on top of the existing form factor, making legacy Standard-B plugs workable on SuperSpeed Standard-B receptacles, but not vice versa.
•    SuperSpeed establishes a communications pipe between the host and each device, in a host-directed protocol. In contrast, USB 2.0 broadcasts packet traffic to all devices.
•    USB 3.0 extends the bulk transfer type in SuperSpeed with Streams. This extension allows a host and device to create and transfer multiple streams of data through a single bulk pipe.
•    New power management features include support of idle, sleep and suspend states, as well as Link-, Device-, and Function-level power management.
•    The bus power spec has been increased so that a unit load is 150 mA (+50% over minimum using USB 2.0). An unconfigured device can still draw only 1 unit load, but a configured device can draw up to 6 unit loads (900 mA, an 80% increase over USB 2.0 at a registered maximum of 500 mA). Minimum device operating voltage is dropped from 4.4 V to 4 V.
•    USB 3.0 does not define cable assembly lengths, except that it can be of any length as long as it meets all the requirements defined in the specification. However, electronicdesign.com estimates cables will be limited to 3 m at SuperSpeed.
•    Technology is similar to a single channel (1x) of PCI Express 2.0 (5-Gbit/s). It uses 8B/10B encoding, linear feedback shift register (LFSR) scrambling for data and spread spectrum. It forces receivers to use low frequency periodic signaling (LFPS), dynamic equalization, and training sequences to ensure fast signal locking. 

Availability

Consumer products are expected to become available in 2010. Commercial controllers are expected to enter into volume production no later than the first quarter of 2010.NEC is aiming to produce its first USB 3.0 controller in June 2009, initially priced at US$15.00. Monthly production of NEC Electronics' µPD720200 host controller is expected to reach approximately 1,000,000 units in September 2009.On September 24, 2009 Freecom announced a USB 3.0 external hard drive.
On October 27th, 2009 Gigabyte announced 7 new P55 chipsets motherboards that included onboard USB 3.0, SATA 6Gb/s and triple power to all USB ports.
On October 29, 2009 Asus announced the November release of their first USB 3.0 motherboard, the "P7P55D-E Premium", as well as a PCI-Express x1 add-on card for existing motherboards to provide USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gbps support
Drivers are under development for Windows 7, but support will not be included with the initial release of the operating system. The Linux kernel has supported USB 3.0 since version 2.6.31, which was released in September 2009.
At least one complete end-to-end test system for USB3 designers is now on the market.
Intel will not support USB 3 until 2011, which will slow down mainstream adoption. Current AMD roadmaps indicate, that the new southbridges released in the beginning of 2010 will not support USB 3. These delays may be due to problems in the CMOS manufacturing process, a focus to advance the Nehalem platform  or a tactic by Intel to boost its upcoming Light Peak interface. Market researcher In-Stat does not predict a relevant market share of USB 3 until 2011.

New shuttle to moon in 2014

According to the National Aeronautics and space Administration (NAS),

The space ship that will take astronauts to the moon should be ready for tests in 2012 and for a manned flight in 2014. NASA plans to retire its again shuttle fleet (which has gone through two tragic disasters), by 2010 and replace it with a crew exploration vehicle to take astronauts to the moon by 2020. The current shuttle fleet has taken parts to the international space station but has never been used as a transport to the moon.

NASA has assigned programmed tasks to ten of its centres, from AMES Research centre in California’s Silicon valley to the Kennedy space Centre in Florida for launching.

Sir Ronald Ross (1857-1932)

Sir Ronald Ross was a British physician and bacteriologist, born in Almora, India. From 1881 to 1899 he served in the Indian medical service.

Ross is well-known for his work on malaria, a topical disease caused by a parasite plasmodium. He discovered this parasite inside the body of the female anopheles mosquito.

A bite from the infected anopheles mosquito can transfer the malarial parasite in to the blood of humans.

Ross was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine or physiology in 1902.

Ross established an institute for studies on tropical diseases, of which he was the Directed till his death. This institute was later named after his.

  

First Commercial Call On a Mobile Phone in India

The first commercial call on a mobile phone was made in India on August 22, 1995. This call was made from Kolkata on the Modi Telstra Network (now aquired by Bharti Airtel). The event marked the beginning of an era of privatisation in the telecom sector at a time when India had about eight million phones for a population of under a billion, giving the country a teledensity  of 0.8%.

Owning a phone was luxury, not so long ago. But in the fast few years, things have changed- cabbies, plumbers, carpenters and daily wage earners proudly own mobile phones.

The mood in the telecom sector continues to be upbeat. In April 2005, India had the seventh largest mobile subscriber base in the world. By December 2007, when we hope to have 200 million cell phone users, India will be number three or four, after China, the US, and perhaps Russia. We hope to go past the U.K, Italy and Germany.