When Apple iPad was released and created a tablet hysteria there was a problem from day one. The tablet needed more juice than what USB could deliver, which resulted in that you cannot use USB to charge the tablet when connected to a computer. The USB group is now trying to improve USB 3.0 to be able to deliver 100W?!
As the problems with iPad surfaced motherboard makers started to come up with their own solutions to make the USB ports more powerful. Current USB standards 2.0 and 3.0 are more or less enough to charge a tablet, mobile phone or power an external harddrive. Charging something through a notebook with current USB standards is not possible, especially not if you want to have both turned on while doing it.
With the above mentioned problem with USB 2.0 and to some extent USB 3.0 it looks like it will take the safe road and update the USB 3.0 standard. The USB 3.0 Promoter Group is about to develop a solution that will make it possible for USB to deliver up to 100W. This would be more than sufficient to charge a tablet, while having it turned on for transfering data to the computer. It would also be possible to power the monitors of the future through USB instead of a hole in the wall.
The new USB 3.0 standard will be backwards compatible with older USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 devices so it should be a transition that consumers should not notice. The specification for the updated USB 3.0 standard will be investigated by the USB-IF in Q4, which means we should see products early next year.
Source: TCMagazine
