Reversible USB 3.1 Type-C coming in July!

Apple in late-2012 debuted the then new Lightning I/O as a replacement for the aging, decade-old 30-pin Dock connector. One of its most compelling features: the symmetrical design allowing the cable to be inserted with either side facing up.

I reckoned at the time that the industry would scramble to replicate Apple’s innovation. Sure enough, the USB 3.0 Promoter Group last December unveiled a new USB Type-C specification with much smaller, twice as fast connectors and cables.

You guessed right, USB Type-C is reversible so the new cables and connectors can be plugged in without worrying about the orientation. Leaked straight out of the world’s top contract manufacturer, Foxconn, the first renders give us a glimpse into the USB’s new Type-C, coming this July…

As pictured top of post, the proposed standard uses smart design where there’s no top or bottom as the plugs are symmetrical – that is, the same at both ends of the cable.

As reported by The Verge, USB Type-C is intended to replace both the regular USB and the smaller Micro USB with one universal standard. Featuring a markedly smaller footprint, the Type-C connector is similar in size to the existing USB 2.0 Micro-B.

In addition to up to 10Gbps bandwidth – twice as much versus the 5Gbps available on USB 3.0 – and the reversible design allowing you to plug in the cable without worrying about its orientation (again, much like Apple’s Lightning), USB Type-C supports scalable power charging thanks to between three and five amperes, up from 1.5A on USB 3.0.

Pictured above: a reference notebook design for USB Type-C connector.

And like Lightning, the much thinner design of USB Type-C (in the range of Apple’s Lightning cable size) will make possible even thinner smartphones, tablets, ultra-thin notebooks and so forth.

The bulkiness of the existing USB 3.0 and lack of advanced features are exactly the reasonswhy Apple couldn’t simply adopt USB 3.0 on iOS devices and instead had to engineer the tiny Lightning I/O.

However, due to the changed design of Type-C connectors and cables as, your existing USB plugs and receptacles won’t work with the new USB Type-C. Expect a whole cottage industry to blossom around new-to-existing cables and adapters.

The USB 3.0 Promoter Group says the connector design scales for future USB bus performance so Type-C ports and connectors should remain unchanged in the years to come.

The design and the full specifications should be finalized in July so expect to see USB Type-C implemented and adopted later in the year across a variety of devices and OEMs.

Apple’s Mac family currently uses USB 3.0.

If history is an indication, we expect Apple to eventually adopt the new Type-C plugs across its lineup, starting with Macs. Curiously enough, the Lightning-to-USB cable which ships with every iPhone, iPod touch and iPad still uses USB 2.0.

If Apple chooses to update the cable to use the emerging USB Type-C, it will be reversible on both sides, how cool is that?

Lenovo Displaces HP as World’s Top PC Maker!

Lenovo has unseated Hewlett-Packard as the world’s top PC maker, a position the company has held for six years, according to Gartner.

The researcher’s stats showed that 15.7% of global PC shipments in the third quarter came from Lenovo vs. 15.5% for HP. That’s the first time Lenovo has taken the No. 1 position. Gartner attributed the PC maker’s gains to aggressive pricing, especially in the professional market. Lenovo’s share has been steadily increasing over the past two years.

Lenovo’s gain came as PC sales declined 8% worldwide in 3Q, in a large part because buyers are holding off purchases of new PCs until Windows 8′s official release on Oct. 26. The U.S. picture was even grimmer: PC sales fell 13.8% for the quarter.

 

HP’s fall from the top spot comes amid a transitional period for that company. HP is in the midst of cutting 29,000 jobs — a process that will take until 2014 to complete. Like others, including Dell, HP has had a hard time transitioning to the so-called post-PC era. The company’s tablet PC, the TouchPad, flopped, leading the company to kill off the product in August 2011.

Nevertheless, not everyone agrees with Gartner’s estimate. HP questioned the figures and pointed to an IDC report also released on Wednesday that showed the company narrowly holding on to the top spot in 3Q.

Meanwhile, the primarily catalyst for the post-PC movement — Apple — didn’t make the top five in either list. If you consider a tablet a PC, as researcher Canalys does, though, then Apple is No. 1.

Kiss Your Keyboard and Mouse Goodbye With: The Leap

Since Steven Spielberg expertly crafted it a decade ago, the world has been clamoring for a user interface similar to what was found in sci-fi thriller Minority Report. Even the inkling of flipping through applications and swiping screens in mid-air made geeks tingle all over, but aside from expertly developed hacks on the Xbox Kinect, nothing definitive seemed to break through and truly give the public that enticing functionality of the future.

That is, until now. After more than five years of development, a proprietary technology has emerged that synthesizes the shape and movement of the human hand to produce movement onto a computer. It’s called The Leap — and for an astonishingly low price of $70, you can begin to control a computer with nothing more than your hands, as early as next February.

“We really wanted to build a device that would actually be leaps and bounds better at doing a lot of things that most people want to do with their computers,” says Leap Motion CEO Michael Buckwald. “And in order to do that, you need to be able to track fingers, and you need to be able to do that at a deep, centimeter level.”

Mashable spoke with Buckwald about the journey his company took to develop The Leap and bring it to market, as well as an inside look on how it works and what we can expect come February.