Although USB and eSATA are the most dominant peripheral connectivity standards these days, FireWire isn't dissapearing without a fight. Word's come in that the 1394-2008 spec has just been approved which includes FireWire 1600 and 3200 and should become available to manufacturers as early as October.

Where todays fastest FireWire is still based on an old 2002 standard with a limitation of 800Mbps (100MB/sec) and most devices only carrying support for half that rate at 400Mbps, the IEEE 1394-2008 spec will allow for connections at up to 1.6Gbps (200MB/sec) or 3.2Gbps (400MB/sec) whilst still being backwards compatible with existing FireWire hardware (both the cables and ports).

More details here.

Piscataway (NJ) - IEEE 1394, better known under the brand names of Firewire and i.Link, will get a speed bump before the end of the year: The IEEE has approved the new IEEE 1394-2008 specification that provides support for a bandwidth of up to 3.2 Gb/s.

Firewire has come a long way. From the initial development by Apple in the late 1980s, to the technology's completion in 1995 and surge in popularity in the early 2000s, the technology has become a serial bus interface common in Sony and Apple computers as well as a range of consumer electronics devices such as video cameras.