[HN Gopher] USB kills off SuperSpeed branding ___________________________________________________________________ USB kills off SuperSpeed branding Author : vedanshbhartia Score : 39 points Date : 2022-09-30 13:25 UTC (1 days ago) (HTM) web link (www.theverge.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.theverge.com) | userbinator wrote: | I think the IEEE got it right with their Ethernet standards: | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethernet_physical_layer#Naming... | | The newer USB transfer speeds are basically using the same sort | of line code as the Ethernet standards anyway. So doing something | similar with USB would result in... 1.5BASE-UT | (USB 1.1) 12BASE-UT (USB 2.0 FS) 480BASE-UT (USB | 2.0 HS) 5000BASE-UT (USB 3.0 / 3.1 Gen 1 / 3.2 Gen 1) | 10GBASE-UT (USB 3.1 Gen 2 / 3.2 Gen 2) 10GBASE-UT2 (USB | 3.2 Gen 1 x2) 20GBASE-UT2 (USB 3.2 Gen 2 x2) | | Better? Worse? | TacticalCoder wrote: | So if I've got two computers, each with a port labelled 40 Gbps | and a USB cable labelled 40 Gbps, what's the protocol I can use | to copy files at close to that? FWIW I used to run PLIP back in | the nineties (IP over parallel port) to share my dialup Internet | connection between my desktop and "laptop", so I'm not afraid of | anything. | chx wrote: | https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/co... | | > the Ethernet over USB4 interdomain protocol, also known as | USB4NET enables two USB4 PCs to establish a network connection | between each other when connected using a USB4 cable, akin to | connecting an ethernet cable between network cards on two PCs. | | I wrote about this a month ago at | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32714807 it gets confusing | because the USB4 protocol uses the word "routers" for hosts, | devices, hubs which of course is used by Ethernet for something | totally else. | TacticalCoder wrote: | Ah I missed it, TYVM! It's great to see that such a feature | made it into USB4 now that it's going to reach these speeds. | | > I do not quite know what happens if you were to plug three | hosts together via a USB4 hub. As my post above details, | USB4NET properly travels over the hub but which hosts pair, I | can't even guess. | | Can't wait to see people trying this and reporting! | aappleby wrote: | Hey, the new branding looks exactly like what I suggested in a | similar HN comment a few months ago. Good job (finally) USB | people. | aappleby wrote: | Old comment thread: | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32682264#32683540 | cududa wrote: | This is still ridiculous. The USB certified logo should be one | image, then a similar sized wattage and Gbps number displayed | next to it. The pertinent information is still too tiny. The | cables themselves are still way too easy to mix up. Connector's | inner plastic should have different colors | wnissen wrote: | The whole concept of "SuperSpeed" made it more difficult to | understand what was going on, so I'm very glad to see it go. A | rare hiccup in the USB consortium's otherwise unbroken streak of | making each generation more difficult to understand. | | The all-time prize has to go to the German wine producers, | though, who regard a wine named "2001 Selbach-Oster Wehlener | Sonnenheur Riesling Spaetlese Feinherb" as very precise and | helpful. | DocTomoe wrote: | > 2001 Selbach-Oster Wehlener Sonnenheur Riesling Spaetlese | Feinherb | | It is a dry (feinherb) white (Riesling is a white wine berry | variety) wine that has been harvested late in the season | (Spatlese), making it have a higher alcohol level. Wehlener | Sonnenheur is a geographical vineyard location (should probably | read Wehlener Sonnenuhr, which is semi-famous and located at | the Mosel, near Bernkastel), Selbach-Oster is the name of the | winemaker, and 2001 is the year of production. | | I fail to see what is complicated about that. But then I am | German. | loufe wrote: | I suppose the OP wasn't being sarcastic, despite (I agree) it | reading as such. | vitus wrote: | Most of those characteristics actually seem par for the | course even in the US. For instance, Trader Joe's sells an | in-house "Trader Joe's Reserve Merlot Sonoma Valley 2020" | [0]. | | At a bare minimum, you'll get vintage (year), winemaker, and | grape varietal, possibly with some additional qualifiers, | e.g. Reserve as above, or late-harvest. Riesling in | particular is such a widely used grape that can be either dry | or sweet, so breaking out "dry Riesling" is not atypical. | | [0] https://www.traderjoes.com/home/products/pdp/reserve- | merlot-... | dividedbyzero wrote: | I think that's fine, every word carries actual information, | though not speaking German will render the last two words | useless and not being well versed in German wines will do the | same to a few words at the start, so perhaps the only | universally understood tokens are 2001 and Riesling (and | perhaps not even Riesling?) | | However, there are lots of laws called things like | Rindfleischetikettierungsuberwachungsaufgabenubertragungsgesetz | and I don't know which level of German language proficiency you | need to be able to read that fluently, but probably one of the | higher ones. Even native speakers sometimes struggle with | lengthy concatenations and I feel that German legalese is a | whole different level of crazy. So perhaps the crown for the | most opaque naming scheme should go to the German Bundestag? | zuminator wrote: | They still have the problem of "Hi-Speed" being the slowest | speed. They should've killed that name off too and required that | manufacturers use the designation 1/2Gbps to be in line with the | other speeds. | theandrewbailey wrote: | This wouldn't be necessary if Big USB had better versioning | numbers to begin with. They're right that customers shouldn't see | "USB4 Gen whatever x LOL", but it shouldn't be a name underneath, | either. | WorldMaker wrote: | The problem is that there are too many "axes" to encode and | simple version numbers would have never worked to encode that | all: protocol version, port version, top-rated speed, top-rated | power draw, optional features, etc. Not every device needs 80 | Gbps and 200 Watts, and if every USB "4" cable had to support | that minimum it would greatly increase costs per length to | support a tiny fraction of devices. It would drastically | simplify things when you go looking for a USB cable for a | device, but the cost market of USB cables would look a lot more | like, say, HDMI cables: just about only short cables and quite | a bit of expense to them. | | This new branding initiative _may_ be on the right track, | encoding the two axes most obvious to end users of cables: | speed and charging strength. (If cable makers move to the new | branding. They don 't have to. That's the real confusion that | USB should fix but can't. Branding is a _suggestion_ , not a | requirement.) | tinus_hn wrote: | Names are fine, the problem is if you call something superspeed | what are you going to call next years speed? Hyper speed? | Ultraspeed? Turbospeed? You rather quickly run out, and that's | if it doesn't start sounding ridiculously hyperbolic before | that. And of course superspeed is super slow by todays | standards. | | So you have to either use marketing names that don't mean | anything by themselves, or numbers that naturally increase. | mixmastamyk wrote: | LudicrousSpeed(tm) of course. | WorldMaker wrote: | That's the mistake that USB 2.0 made calling 480 Mbps "High | Speed". Now it seems incredibly slow by today's standards. | Tijdreiziger wrote: | See also: high definition TV | alias_neo wrote: | Am I right in thinking that 4K and 8K are UHD 4K and UHD | 8K? | | I guess this debacle goes even further back with VHF and | UHF. | | Why do we insist on using such words when they don't | clearly have an order? | | Is "very" larger than "ultra" and where would "super" fit | in there? | anikom15 wrote: | Usable frequency is just on one axis, and is bound by the | physical properties of the atmosphere, so there is at | least a limit. | mananaysiempre wrote: | Or even USB 1.1, which called the faster of its two modes | (12 Mbit, or perhaps more honestly Mbaud, per second) "Full | Speed", at which point anything you name an even-faster one | is going to be confusing. | dwaite wrote: | The problem is that techs push for branding to be things like a | spec semantic version, but specs often just define options such | that vendors would implement them in an interoperable way - | while profiles are what define and test interoperability | against mandatory feature sets. | | Spec lines like USB 3.x and HDMI 2.x are meant to be | interoperable sets of ever-increasing options, not an upward | climb of mandatory minimum capabilities. | | Vendors who didn't use SuperSpeed nomenclature before might | have been doing so because it was clunky, but also might have | been doing so because they didn't want to go through the effort | of being certified against a profile (and in some cases, had | nonconforming products) | | This is simpler naming, but it remains to be seen whether | implementors will suddenly care about certification. Those | motherboards with the "USB 3.2 2x2 USB-A" red ports on the back | are AFAIK un-certifiable and even non-conformant. No amount of | marketing push for simpler names is going to help if vendors | feel they get more value from just making stuff up. | TazeTSchnitzel wrote: | How does this handle 2x1 vs 1x2 vs 2x2? | AdamJacobMuller wrote: | > "As we started to update our branding we did a lot of focus | group studies with many different types of consumers," he tells | The Verge, "and none of those people understood the messaging and | the branding, and they don't understand revision control or spec | names." | | You didn't need a focus group to tell you this (though I'm glad | they did one). Just look at every single comment thread on HN | about USB branding, at this point it's a meme. | WorldMaker wrote: | USB-IF is a forum of so many different companies the focus | group probably was needed for CYA finger pointing if no other | reason. If _this_ branding doesn 't work out they can blame a | bad focus group and convene a new one rather than war among | themselves. | schmichael wrote: | At this point USB might as well auction their branding rights | like sports stadiums: | | - USB Coke Zero | | - USB House of Dragon streaming exclusively on HBO | | - USB Crypto.com | | Consumers, Devices, and cables could continue ignoring it all but | at least the consortium could have a new revenue stream. | Waterluvian wrote: | Pepsi Presents: HDMI 3.0. With the most refreshing refresh rate | ever. | altairprime wrote: | If it doesn't have any optional features, I'd take that in a | heartbeat. | | HDMI Pepsi: Same great taste, no matter where you are. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-10-01 23:00 UTC)