Tag: broadcast-network tuners

I have observed a steady increase in the number of “broadcast-LAN” tuner devices appearing in various markets around the world.

What are these devices?

How the broadcast-LAN devices fit in to a home network

These are devices that integrate a broadcast tuner which is connected to an antenna (aerial), cable-TV system or satellite dish and hardware for streaming the broadcast signals down a computer network to computers or similar devices. The computers or similar devices effectively select the stations to be received through the use of front-end software that runs on these devices.

I refer to these devices as “broadcast-LAN” or “broadcast-network” devices because they bridge traditional radio or television broadcast services delivered over a traditional broadcast medium with a computer local-area network to be enjoyed on the devices connected to that network.

Cheaper and, usually, first-generation implementations use one tuner circuit so are able to stream one broadcast signal down the network. But the better systems implement two or more tuner circuits and/or “split” broadcast signals that are part of a multiple-broadcast single-frequency multiplex like what is implemented with DVB-based digital TV to concurrently stream multiple broadcasts to multiple devices.

Why do these devices appear on the market?

Initially these devices appeared on the market to allow people to watch TV broadcasts on regular-platform computers without the need to have a tuner module in the computer and / or to have the tuner connected to an aerial, cable-TV or similar infrastructure. This exploits the concept offered by HomePlug AV and Wi-Fi technologies that the connection to the home network is more pervasive than the connection to the aerial or similar infrastructure.

The classic situation that is often come across is for a TV-aerial or cable-TV socket to be installed in the main lounge area and, perhaps, the master bedroom or another lounge area but you may want to watch TV in another area using a laptop. This situation can be complicated with rented premises, buildings that use difficult construction materials and techniques or, simply, “splittered” TV-aerial infrastructure that is only optimised for TV sets that are relocated on a whim.

This situation is taken further with the ubiquity of the tablet computers that are based on mobile platforms. There is a strong desire to use these computers and, in some cases, large-screen smartphones or laptop / notebook computers as a personal TV device in lieu of the traditional small-screen portable TV set. Similarly, a regular computer or NAS with the appropriate software could work as a network DVR to capture TV shows for later viewing by tuning in to signals presented by these devices.

This latter situation is exploited further with mobile broadcast-LAN devices that link to mobile digital-TV services like Dyle TV in the USA. Here, the situation allows the user to tune in to a TV show on one of these services using their tablet or smartphone, but they work more as a Wi-Fi access point rather than a Wi-Fi client.

If the idea is to replace the TV-antenna or cable-TV connection to a, typically secondary, TV set with the home network, you may have to use an IPTV set-top box, a smart TV or similar video peripheral to pick up the content from the broadcast-LAN box.

This situation is being made easier by HDHomeRun who have released their HDHomeRun Prime box for the US market. Here, this unit presents itself as a DLNA Media Server device and lists the channels it can provide as its content pool. Here, you can use a PS3 or XBox 360 games console, a DLNA-capable smart TV or a DLNA-capable Blu-Ray home theatre system to tune in the broadcasts.

Issues that can occur with broadcast-LAN setups

The user experience with a broadcast-LAN setup may not be the same for what has been expected with traditional broadcast receiption. This is more so with DLNA-based setups that are focused around file-based on-demand media or client software that doesn’t offer a proper broadcast-reception experience.

For example, it may take a long time to switch between channels which may make channel-surfing a bit more painful. This also can make it hard to switch between two channels which is something we may do to check on content like news or sports events that are hosted on one or both of the channels.

The future for the broadcast-LAN devices

The broadcast-LAN setups will be seen as being relevant as we continue to receive TV and radio via traditional broadcast paths and we primarily make heavy use of smartphones, tablets and ultraportable computers for our work and lifestyle computing needs.

As well, there will be a likelihood of these devices working as network-wide personal video recorder devices where that capture favourite TV shows and make them available to play on demand at any device attached to the home network. They could be in the form of a high-capacity hard disk built in to or connected to the broadcast-LAN device and/or a separate network-attached-storage device holding the recordings.

Similarly, the broadcast-LAN devices are being pitched in America by the consumer-electronics industry as a highly-competitive “consumers-first” alternative to the traditional cable-TV set-top box. Here, a DLNA-capable broadcast-LAN cable TV gateway can be used to distribute the pay-TV content to all the TVs in a pay-TV customer’s house without the customer paying extra to the cable-TV company to install set-top boxes on each TV. The use of RVU remote-user-interface technology which is being considered as part of the DLNA standards would allow customers to gain access to the advanced services that a pay-TV firm would offer like pay-per-view content and movies-on-demand.

Conclusion

I see the “broadcast-LAN” devices as becoming a key device class for the home network especially where portable computing devices like tablets are being used to enjoy content that is delivered by traditional radio and TV broadcasters.

Introduction

Most of us have one or more private spaces in the home that aren’t really where we sleep in but want to retreat to when we want to spend time alone or with a few chosen people. This may, for men, be the classic “men’s shed” or “office-den” but is becoming the so-called “man-cave”. For women, it may be a private lounge area or study with some people purposing these spaces for personal religious activity amongst other activities.

HP Envy 4 Touchsmart Ultrabook – an example of a touch-enabled Ultrabook that can be moved around very easily

Some of these spaces may also be used as a reception space for one’s own group of friends such as a man’s “mates” or a woman’s own “lady friends”, as well as serving as the own space. This is more so if they want to meet with these people away from the rest of the crowd in the house.

In most of these areas, it may be appropriate to be able to engage in online life using the home network. It encompasses access to the resources available via the home network whether it be music and video content held on the NAS or the ability to print out documents on a network-capable printer. The activities may range from personal entertainment in these areas through researching information from the Internet to creating documents and Web content.

What can you use here?

Sony VAIO Tap 20 – an example of an “Adaptive All-In-One” computer

You may want to use a portable computer device whether it be a laptop / notebook or tablet computer so you can take it between your private space and other spaces. For a fixed setup, you may go for an all-in-one or low-profile desktop computer. Some systems like the Sony VAIO Tap 20 may be able to bridge the gap between a large-screen desktop and a laptop computer and some of the regular all-in-one computers may be light enough to be transported from room to room.

The portable computer or easy-to-transport “all-in-one” computer would be more important if you are dealing with a space that is accessible directly from outside and doesn’t do well for security. This is because you can easily take the computer in to your home so it doesn’t tempt thieves when you have finished in that space.

Sony SA-NS510 Portable Wireless Speaker

If you are thinking of online-capable audio or video equipment that can fit well in this space, there is a lot of the equipment that can suit your particular needs. For example, a small Internet radio could be the answer for a shed or garage like as I have seen with the Kogan Internet radio that I reviewed in this site’s early days. Here, a person who was living with me had this radio in the garage playing some content from BBC Radio 4’s Internet feed while he was doing a few repairs at the workbench. A small Blu-Ray-equipped home-theatre system of the same ilk as a Sony BDV-E2100 or Yamaha MCR-755 or a small hi-fi of the ilk of the Sony CMT-MX750Ni or Denon CEOL Series could play its part as an entertainment system for a den.

You can even use the home-theatre systems with an LCD computer monitor as the display device if the monitor has an HDMI input socket or DVI socket that is compliant with HDCP. This can mean that you don’t need to use a TV set with these devices especially if you use a DLNA-compliant broadcast-LAN tuner or just enjoy media held on optical disc or the home network.

On the other hand, you could use a Bluetooth or Wi-Fi wireless speaker system along with your smartphone, tablet or notebook to play audio content from more than the speaker built in to the computer device. Similarly, you could connect a Bluetooth audio adaptor or AirPlay/DLNA-compliant network media receiver to a pair of computer speakers or a small boombox that has a line input to achieve the same goal.

What needs to be done

Network connectivity

Here, I would make sure that you have reliable access to the home network from this space. If the space is located in another building, I would suggest that you pay attention to my article on multiple-building home networks.

The WD LiveWire HomePlug AV switch that fills in the network gap

In some cases, I would make sure there is an Ethernet connection in that area if your place is being wired for Ethernet and you can afford it. On the other hand, you could use a HomePlug AV powerline connection to that space. This is important for detached buildings or rooms with direct outdoor access where they may not be secure because you can take the HomePlug adaptor in to your home. It is also important if you don’t get good Wi-Fi wireless-network reception from your router in that area and this situation can be remedied using an access point connected to the wired backbone.

Access to live TV content

As for access to TV content, if your space doesn’t have a connection for a TV aerial (antenna) or cable / satellite TV, you could use the home network to gain access to TV content. This is facilitated with a broadcast-LAN tuner like HDHomeRun or Devolo dLAN Sat which is connected to the TV aerial, cable or satellite TV depending on the device and transmits your chosen broadcast signal down the home network. Then you use software on the computer or tablet to “tune in” to the broadcasts. For that matter, the HDHomeRun Prime offers access to antenna or US cable TV you subscribe to via DLNA-capable video devices and software.

On the other hand, if you have pay TV, you could benefit from the provider’s “TV Everywhere” solution which works with regular or mobile computer devices to show live or on-demand pay-TV on these devices using your home network.

Access to your network-hosted content library

For audio, photo and video content, you can use DLNA-capable software media players like Windows Media Player 12, or TwonkyMedia to play the content on your portable computer or mobile device. If you use any of the Apple platforms, you could set your NAS up as an iTunes server for the audio content and have the iTunes music player software on your device pull up this content.

As I have mentioned before, devices with network-media-playback functionality would have to work to DLNA and/or AirPlay standards if you want to use these as your media player for your small space.

Printing from your private space

You may not need to worry about having a printer installed in that “man cave” or similar space if you are using a network-accessible printer. This means that you don’t have to worry about factoring in space for the printer. The only exception to the rule is if you see this space as a home office and you may want to have a heavy-duty machine for turning out work related to your business or similar effort.

Conclusion

Here, you can set up a reliable personal computing and entertainment environment that you can use in your small personal space, with the equipment being more suited to that space.

Articles

HDHomeRun Prime is the first CableCARD tuner to deliver live TV to DLNA Devices

From the horse’s mouth

Silicon Dust

Press Release

Product Page

My Comments

Most of the “broadcast-LAN” server devices which stream broadcast content, whether from a regular antenna (aerial), cable TV or a satellite dish, to a computer network typically require the use of manufacturer-supplied software or drivers on regular computers or mobile devices on that network to gain access to the broadcast content on those devices.

But Silicon Dust, makers of the HDHomeRun “broadcast-LAN” devices have updated their HDHomeRun Prime CableCard-capable cable-TV device to work as a DLNA-compliant device. This means that if you use a DLNA-compliant media client device or run DLNA-compliant media-client software on your computer or smartphone, you can have access to the TV channels through this device.

This function is provided through a software upgrade to the HDHomeRun Prime broadcast-LAN devices, both the new units that are being sold as well as the existing models that are in service. The device will present itself to the DLNA Home Media Network as a Media Server with Premium Video support courtesy of DTCP-IP content security.

I see this more as a valid example of using DLNA as part of a “broadcast-LAN” solution thus providing for software-independent setups for these applications. This would also further the FCC’s desire for customer-friendly cable TV which is independent of particular cable-company-controlled hardware.

What could be seen of this kind of setup being available for the home network? One application may be the use of DLNA-compliant media client software in regular and mobile computing devices to turn these devices in to secondary TVs. This could extend to devices like smart TVs and video peripherals using their network connection effectively as an aerial connection.

As well, home and business users could benefit from being able to push live broadcast content to DLNA-enabled displays using the control point software. Example applications could range from using a tablet or smartphone to push TV programs to a smart TV in the home to bars and cafes pushing out sportscasts or key news broadcasts to the big screens using a POS computer.

One point of evolution I would like to see for these devices is DLNA-driven PVR applications for recording the broadcasts. This may be facilitated with the recording functionality and the broadcast tuner in the same box such as a “TV content server” application. On the other hand, a computer, network-attached storage or similar device picking up content from a device like this HDHomeRun and recording it to its own storage. Then this same device could serve out the content that it records to the DLNA Home Media Network.

It also encompasses the concept of applying “trick-play” to live broadcasts, including the ability to start watching from the beginning of a show even as the show is being recording, like one can do with most PVR setups. As well, there would be the ability for multi-room features like “start on one TV, continue on the other” that can be part of the expected feature set.

At least this device with the new firmware has shown itself as an example of implementing DLNA to a broadcast-network (broadcast-LAN) application.

Articles

National Broadband Plan: An Effort For The Ages | Microsoft On The Issues

FCC releases its national broadband plan for the US | ThinkBroadband (UK)

From the horse’s mouth

National Broadband Plan – broadband.gov

My comments

One of the main goals with the US National Broadband Plan was to make sure that an affordable broadband Internet service with a minimum headline speed of 100Mbps downstream / 50Mbps upstream passes at least 100 million households across that country.

The main limitation concerning this goal is that, at the moment, one third of the US population cannot benefit from broadband Internet. In my opinion, most of this would be in sparsely-populated rural areas.

Need for universal Internet service similar to what is required for the telephone

In the US, the universal landline telephone service (private phone with directories for all households, plus commonly-accessible public payphones) is provided by the local incumbent telephony service provider, with the costs paid for by a levy on all telephone services in that country.

Part of the plan would be to release money from Universal Service Fund which is funded by the aforementioned levy to fund a universal broadband service.

Need for highly-competitive service with barriers to entry taken down

Part of this same requirement also includes a highly-competitive service in all markets with any and all barriers to competition taken down. This is in a similar manner to what has happened with the local “dial-tone” phone service in the US and other countries where this same service can be provided by competing service providers.

Coverage improvements

The improvement to universal Internet service goals will also lead to coverage improvements. This may not be an issue with most of the USA because of the country being densely populated but will be of concern with places like Alaska. Of course, there are rural patches within the contiguous 48 stats where not many people are living and these will have to be serviced with proper broadband. This will be looked at with the improvements to the Universal Service Fund.

Similarly, this plan will also satisfy the desire to make sure that next-generation broadband service passes anchor institutions like schools, colleges, hospitals, libraries and the like. It also includes making sure that military bases have access to next-generation broadband.

Implementation

The issue of access to basic broadband Internet service by the poor is being dealt with. Here, the FCC are putting forward the idea of extending the scope of the Lifeline and Link-Up communications financial-assistance programs to include this level of Internet access.

It will also include opening up radio spectrum, most likely “digital dividend” TV spectrum, for use in providing wireless broadband service, especially to rural areas. This may also include competitive mobile wireless broadband in urban areas.

Another part of the program is to mandate cost-effective access to telecommunications infrastructure like telegraph poles, underground conduits, towers / building rooftops, land patches and the like. This includes a “dig-once” policy which allows multiple companies to use the same telegraph poles and underground conduits for their own wiring as well as commonly-known infrastructure details to facilitate efficient Internet-service rollout.

Net Neutrality

An issue that hasn’t been talked about in the Broadband Plan is the concept of Net Neutrality. This divisive issue concerns whether certain Internet services and applications have better throughput versus the idea of all Internet applications and services having equal access. It is also of importance whenever telephone and TV move to IP-based transmission and this concept would assure that competitive and complementary services can exist on the same pipe with proper quality of service. This subject also leads to:

Multi-Channel TV

The American populace has been disaffected by the way multi-channel TV, especially cable TV, has been handled by the service providers, which are mainly cable-TV monopolies like Comcast.

One main disaffection was that the set-top boxes are literally controlled by the multi-channel TV providers and customers cannot buy and install set-top boxes or similar devices from retail outlets. There have been attempts to achieve a customer-controlled level playing field for set-top-box supply such as the CableCARD system but the cable industry have frustrated these attempts with measures like requiring a cable-TV technician to visit the customer’s premises to supply the card.

Part of this plan is to require the supply of a broadcast-IP tuner gateway to be provided by the cable company and connected to the customer’s home network and these same customers connecting their own IP-based equipment to the same home network. Here, the main goal would be to provide a competitive program-navigation system for customers to benefit from.

Integration in US public life; and IT literacy

Another goal with the US National Broadband Program is to integrate the high-speed broadband service in to US public life such as providing access to “e-government” at all levels and integrating the service with public education for example.

The plan also includes IT awareness through the community, but as I have noticed, there will be people who will find technology hard to use and will need further assistance. This is exemplified by people who find operating consumer electronics very difficult and are likely to resist using devices like a set-top box beyond changing channels for example.

Summary

What this all leads to is that one of the cornerstones of the US National Broadband Plan is to liberate broadband Internet and multi-channel TV service in a similar way to what has happened to the US telephone service since the Carterfone Decision and the AT&T anti-trust investigation of the late 70s.

I have written some other posts about the Consumer Electronics Show 2010, mainly about the rise of Android and about Skype being integrated in to regular TV sets. But this is the main post about what has been going on at this show.

TV technologies

The main technologies that were present at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show were those technologies related to the TV set.

US consumers are in a TV upgrade cycle due to the country undergoing a digital TV switchover and are preferring flatscreen sets over CRT sets. This is even though there are digital-TV set-top boxes being made available at very cheap prices and through government subsidy programs. The main reality is that the older sets will be “pushed down” to applications like the spare bedroom with the newer sets being used in the primary viewing areas.

Screen Technologies

The main technology that is capturing the CES show floor is 3D TV. This has been brought on by the success of “Avatar” and requires a 3D-capable TV and, for Blu-Ray discs, a 3D-capable Blu-Ray player. In the case of broadcast content, some HD-capable set-top boxes and PVRs that are in the field can be upgraded to 3D functionality through an “in-the-field” firmware update.

In most cases, viewers will need to wear special glasses to view the images with full effect and most implementations will be base on the “RealD” platform. Some eyewear manufacturers are even jumping in on the act to provide “ready-to-wear” and prescription glasses for this purpose.

Vizio had also introduced a 21:9 widescreen TV even though activity on this aspect ratio had become very dormant.

Blu-Ray

The US market has cracked key price marks for standalone lounge-room players and there is an increase in the supply of second-tier models, especially integrated “home-theatre-in-box” systems and low-cost players.

US ATSC Mobile DTV standard

You may not be able to get away from the “boob tube” at all in America with portable-TV products based on the new ATSC Mobile digital TV standard which has been released to the market this year.

LG are launching a mobile phone and a portable DVD player with mobile DTV reception capability. They are also releasing a mobile ATSC DTV tuner chip that is optimised for use in in-car tuners, laptops and similar designs. Vizio are also releasing a range of handheld LED-backlit LCD TVs for this standard.

A key issue that may need to be worked out with this standard is whether an ATSC Mobile DTV device can pick up regular over-the-air ATSC content. This is more so if companies use this technology as the TV-reception technology for small-screen transportable TVs typically sold at the low-end of the TV-receiver market. It is also of concern with computer implementations where a computer may be used as a “one-stop entertainment shop” with TV-reception abilities.

There is a small Mobile-DTV – WiFi network tuner, known as the Tivit, that was shown at the CES. It is a battery-operated device that is the size of an iPhone and uses the WiFi technology to pass mobile TV content to a laptop, PDA or smartphone that is running the appropriate client software. It has a continuous “battery-only” run-time of 3 hours but can be charged from a supplied AC adaptor or USB port. I consider this product as being a highly-disruptive device that could be deployed in, for example, a classroom to “pass around” TV content, but it also has its purpose as something to show the ballgame on a laptop during the tailgate picnic. The main question I have about this is whether it can be a DLNA broadcast server so that people can use them with any software or hardware DLNA-based media playback client.

Network-enabled TV viewing

This now leads me to report on what is happening with integrating the TV with the home network.

More of the “over-the-top” IPTV and video-on-demand solutions (Netflix, CinemaNow, Hulu, etc) are becoming part of most network-enabled home video equipment. In the US, this may make the concept of “pulling out the cable-TV cable” (detaching from multichannel pay-TV services) real without the users forfeiting the good content. They could easily run with off-the-air network TV or basic cable TV and download good movies and television serials through services like Netfilx or Hulu.

The main enabler of this would be the “Smart TVs” which connect to the home network and the Internet, thus providing on-screen data widgets, YouTube integration, DLNA content access, as well as the “over-the-top” services. Even so, the TV doesn’t necessarily have to have this functionality in it due to peripheral devices like home-theatre receivers (Sherwood RD-7505N) and multimedia hard disks (Iomega ScreenPlay Director HD) having these functions. Of course, games consoles wouldn’t be considered complete nowadays unless they have the functionality.

RF-based two-way remote control

Some home-AV manufacturers are moving away from the regular one-way infrared remote control, mainly in order to achieve increased capability and increased reliability. These setups are typically in the form of a hardware remote control or software remote control application that runs on a smartphone and they use Bluetooth as a way of communicating with the device.

These setups will typically require the customer to “pair” the remote control or the smartphone as part of device setup, which will be an experience similar to pairing a Bluetooth headset with a mobile phone. They have infra-red as a user-enabled fallback method for use with universal remote controls, but this could at least foil the likes of disruptive devices like “TV Turn-Off”.

The main driver behind this form of two-way remote control is to provide a secondary screen for interactive video such as BD-Live Blu-Ray discs. Infact, Michael Jackson’s “This Is It” Blu-Ray disc implements this technology in the form of an iPhone app which links with certain Blu-Ray players to use the iPhone’s user interface as a jukebox for the title.

Smartphones and MIDs

Previously, I had done a blog article on the rise of the Android platform as a challenger to the Apple iPhone market share as far as smartphones are concerned.. There is even talk of Android working beyond the smartphone and the MID towards other device types like set-top boxes and the like, with some prototype devices being run on this operating system.

There is an up-and-coming MID in the form of the Adam Internet Tablet MID. This Android-based unit which can link to WiFi netwoks and has a 32Gb SSD, also has a new display-type combination in the form of an anti-glare LCD / e-ink display

This year. the “smartbook” is gaining prominence as a new general-purpose computing form factor. It is a computer that looks like a netbook but is smaller than one of them. It is powered by an ARM-processor abd could run integrated 3G or cellular calls; and its functionality is more equivalent to that of a smartphone.

There have been some E-book readers shown but these are mostly tied to a particular publisher or retail chain.

Connected Car Media

Pioneer and Alpine have equipped their top-of-the-line multimedia head units with “connected radio” functionality. This function works with a USB-tethered iPhone running the Pandora Internet Radio app. Both these solutions act as a “controller” for the Pandora app, with the iPhone pulling in the online content through that service. The Pioneer solution also offers a “virtual-DJ” function in the form of an extended-functionality app that works alongside iTunes. All these solutions are intended to appeal to the young fashion-conscious male who sees the iPhone as a status symbol and likes to have his car “thumping” with the latest tunes. These solutions don’t seem to go anywhere beyond that market, whether with other mobile-phone platforms or other online-media applications like Internet-radio streams.

Ford  have developed the MyFord sophisticated dashboard and online telematics system and were demonstrating it at this show. This will work with a user-supplied 3G modem and also supports WiFi router functionality. Typically, this will be rolled out to the top-end of Ford’s US market, such as the Lincoln and Mercury vehicles.

Digital Photography

The new cameras of this year have seen improved user-interfaces, including the use of touchscreen technology and some manufacturers are toying with the use of fuel-cell technology as a power-supply method.

As far as network integration goes, Canon have enabled their EOS 7D digital SLR with this functionality once equipped with the optional Canon WiFi adaptor. This solution even provides for DLNA media-playback functionality.

The aftermarket Eye-Fi WiFi SD memory card was shown as a version, known as the Pro Series, that can associate with 802.11n networks.

The unanswered question with network-enabled digital photography hardware is how and whether these solutions will suit the needs of many professional photographers.  The main questions include whether the units will associate with many different wireless networks that the photographer visits without them having to re-enter the network’s security parameters. Another question is whether these solutions can work with higher-security WPA2-Enterprise networks, which is of importance with photographers working in most business, government and education setups.

Computer equipment

“New Computing Experience” alive and well in the US market. Market interested in powerful lightweight laptops that are slightly larger than netbooks. These will be driven by processors that are energy-efficient but are powerful. They could become an all-round portable computer that could appeal to college students and the like or simply as a desktop replacement. The machines that I think of most with this market are the Apple Macbook Pro comoputers that are in circulation, the HP Envy series or the smaller VAIO computers.

Nearly all of these computers that are being launched at the show are running Windows 7, which shows that the operating system will gain more traction through the next system-upgrade cycle.

USB 3.0

There has been some more activity on the USB 3.0 SuperSpeed front.

Western Digital had released an external hard disk that works on this standard, which is known as the MyBook 3.0. This my typically be slow as far as peripherals go because of not much integration in to the computer scene. VIA have also shown a USB 3.0 4-port hub as a short-form circuit, but this could lead to USB 3.0 hubs appearing on the market this year.

ASUS and Gigabyte have released motherboards that have USB 3.0 controllers and sockets on board. These may appeal to system builders and independent computer resellers who may want to differentiate their desktop hardware, as well as to “gaming-rig” builders who see USB 3.0 as bragging rights at the next LAN party. None of the laptop OEMs have supplied computers with USB 3.0 yet.

As far as the general-purpose operating systems (Windows, MacOS X, Linux) go, none of them have native USB 3.0 integrated at the moment but this may happen in the next service lifecycle of the major operating systems.

Some more benefits have been revealed including high-speed simultaneous data transfer (which could benefit external hard disks and network adaptors) and increased power efficiency, especially for portable applications.