Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard, developed in the mid-1990s, that defines all those cables, connectors and communications protocols that are generally used in a bus for connection, communication and power supply between computers and other electronic devices. USB was originally designed in order to standardize the connection of computer peripherals, such as keyboards, pointing devices, digital cameras, printers, etcetera to personal computers, both to communicate and to supply electric power. It has then become commonplace also on other devices, such as smartphones, PDAs and video game consoles. USB has now effectively replaced a variety of earlier interfaces, such as serial and parallel ports, as well as separate power chargers for portable devices.
