USB : the Universal Serial Bus
USB is a standard for connectivity; most new computers have several USB ports and almost every peripheral device you can imagine is available with a USB interface. New operating systems recognise USB devices automatically making USB very simple for the user.
USB Devices include : printers, scanners, mice, joysticks and other gaming accessories, digital cameras, webcams, modems, speakers, microphones, telephones, networking devices and storage/memory. Up to 127 devices can be connected, although you'd need a few hubs to obtain that many ports on most computers. You can even connect devices up to 5 meters away from the host.
USB has been with us for a long time, but the USB2 specification has expanded the variety of applications that USB can support. This specification was developed by a group called the USB 2.0 Promoter Group (Compaq, Hewlett Packard, Intel, Lucent, Microsoft, NEC and Philips), and was released in April 2000. USB 2.0 is approximately 40 times as fast as USB 1.1, offering speeds of 480 Mb/s.
