USB 3.0 is slowly making it's way to computers and laptops but has stayed clear of smartphones and tablets until now. The USB implementers forum at the CES claim that we will start seeing the super-speed USB standard on our mobile devices by the end of 2012 or early 2013Unfortunately you won't be getting the 5 Gbps speeds promised in the USB 3.0 specifications and will likely get around 800Mbps.
This will still be a great improvement over the USB 2.0 speeds allowing what took roughly 15 minutes to copy just a little over a minute with the new standard. The high speeds will also allow you to charge you device much faster than before.
The manufacturers behind USB 3.0 are even working on making the ports smaller which will allow even thinner mobile devices in the future. Also there will be backward compatibility for USB 2.0 devices, so you can use your old USB devices on the newer port.
With Intel pushing their own Thunderbolt technology, which has already been adopted by Apple on their laptops it will be interesting to see which is the preferred choice on smartphones in the future. Other Laptop manufacturers have shown that Thunderbolt and USB can co exist on their machines.
source - PCWorld