Glossary
159
USB
short for Universal Serial Bus
The Universal Serial Bus is an interface for transferring data
between a computer and connected devices. It was intro-
duced in 1996. Today nearly all computers have multiple USB
ports. USB is used, for instance, to connect many keyboards,
mice, printers and external hard drives to the computer.
By now many other devices also have a USB port. For in-
stance, many DVD and Blue-ray players can play back photo-
graphs, videos and music directly from a USB storage medi-
um (hard drive, flash drive).
The Universal Serial Bus supports hot plugging. This means
that USB devices can be connected without turning the com-
puter off. The Universal Serial Bus also offers a 5-volt power
supply. This makes it possible to load devices at the USB port
and operate USB devices that do not have a power supply of
their own.
The Universal Serial Bus was introduced with the USB 1.0
specification in 1996. In 1998 came the reworked USB 1.1
specification, followed in 2000 by USB 2.0. With 480 Mbit/s,
USB 2.0 provides for considerably higher throughput rates
than USB 1.0/1.1 (12 Mbit/s).
VPN
short for Virtual Private Network
VPN serves to integrate devices from a neighboring network
into your own network, without the networks having to be
compatible with each other.
A VPN is generally an independent company network distrib-
uted over several locations, which uses the infrastructure of a
public communications network to link its partial networks or
to link individual computers to the rest of the network. A VPN
uses tunneling technologies and typically builds on the infra-
structure of the Internet.
FB6840LTE-e2.fm Seite 159 Dienstag, 29. Mai 2012 5:34 17