Welcome to Smuggle Me

USB has been one of the most incredible technologies that has come around. Almost everything has been done with USB. When I say everything I really mean everything. If you don’t believe me then go and search Digg and find all the various USB creations that have been made. My favorite is a USB grill.

I’m not sure why you’d want a USB grill, but today I came across a use for USB that is absolutely fantastic!! Not to mention it’s very useful. It’s called KVM2USB. KVM2USB conveys the VGA stream from any host computer to a laptop, while emulating the laptop’s keyboard and mouse outputs. How sweet is that?

Basically that means that all you need is to carry around a laptop (check!) and the KVM2USB with its cable. Easy enough. I’ve always hated having to hook up a monitor, mouse and keyboard into a different server. It’s a pain in the butt. The KVM2USB seems to pretty much solve those problems.

Take a look at the KVM2USB Technical Specifications.

It is important to note that KVM2USB requires USB 2.0. Here’s the reasoning from their FAQ:

KVM2USB transfers substantial amounts of data for each captured frame. As USB 1.x buses are very slow (12Mb/s), they do not provide sufficient bandwidth for KVM2USB. USB 2.0 buses have a much higher transfer rate (480Mb/s), which allows KVM2USB acquire and transfer several frames per second.

Makes sense if you think about it. Luckily laptops these days are all coming with USB 2.0. If it used anything else then I’d be a little concerned whether it would really work.