Universal Serial Bus, or USB

This competing serial input/output technology was introduced in 1997. USB ports are found on most desktop PCs, notebooks, and peripherals today. There are far more USB devices than there are FireWire peripherals. The new USB 2.0 specification promises data transfer rates of 480 mbps, which is 80 mbps faster than FireWire. USB 2.0 devices are backwards-compatible with USB 1.1 ports. While you won't get the increased speeds, you can use a USB 2.0 device with your current notebook's USB 1.1 port.