Peer-to-peer USB hits the road

The USB industry standards group, the USB-IF (Implementors Forum) has formally published the specification that describes how USB-equipped peripherals can to talk to each other directly. At present USB devices need to communicate via a host controller, which involves a PC or a Mac. The move was mooted in March, and a draft of the revision circulated by USB-IF in September.

This historic host-centric feature of USB drives demand for PCs of course, but it has been cited as one of the two primary technical deficiencies reasons USB when compared against the IEEE-1394 serial bus. (The other is 1394's support for isochronous transfers, that guarantee that data is fed through to the device in a given time frame. That's pretty essential for syncing audio and video streams, and accounts why 1394 became the standard in digital camcorders... it isn't just about speed).

The USB revision, dubbed OTG or On-The-Go, only applies to USB 2.0-class devices, mind, which should begin to appear next year. It's backed by Nokia and Ericsson (but notably, not Sony), who asked for a smaller connector that's more appropriate for smartphones and communicators.

OTG should help drive the adoption of USB 2.0, which has been looking less than inevitable of late. Intel has warmed to IEEE-1394 over the past fifteen months on the face of the insistence of consumer video peripheral manufacturers to use the bus. We'll see at MacWorld if Apple, a co-developer of the 1394 bus, will commit to USB 2.0. It probably doesn't want to, but a Mac that's supposed to be the hub of a "digital lifestyle" (pass the sick bucket) that doesn't talk to fancy phones is no hub at all. So it'll probably swallow hard, and adopt it. ®

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