Universal Serial Bus

A Universal Serial Bus (USB) is a specification to establish communication between devices and a host controller (usually a personal computer), developed and invented by Ajay Bhatt, while working for Intel. USB ports have effectively replaced a variety of interfaces such as serial and parallel ports.

USB can connect computer periphals like mice, keyboards, digital cameras, printers, personal media players, flash drives, Network Adapters, and external hard drives. For many of those devices, USB has become the standard connection method.

The USB was designed for use in personal computers, but it has become commonplace on other devices such as smartphones, PDAs and video game consoles, and as a power cord. As of 2008[update], there are about 2 billion USB devices sold per year, and approximately 6 billion total sold to date.

Unlike the older connection standards RS-232 or Parallel port, USB connectors also supply electric power, so many devices connected by USB do not need a power source of their own.

USBs can be a range of sizes. The largest USB currently available is the 256GB Kingston Data Traveller 300.