USB Universal Serial Port

Universal Serial Bus (USB) provides a serial bus standard for connecting devices, usually to computers such as PCs and the Apple Macintosh, but is also becoming commonplace on video game consoles such as Sony's PlayStation 2, Microsoft's Xbox 360, Nintendo's Revolution, and PDAs, and even devices like televisions and home stereo equipment.

The design of USB aimed to remove the need for adding separate expansion cards into the computer's ISA or PCI bus, and improve plug-and-play capabilities by allowing devices to be hot swapped or added to the system without rebooting the computer. When the new device first plugs in, the host enumerates it and loads the device driver necessary to run it.

Full definition of USB at Wikipedia

USB makes it easy to install keyboards, mice, network adapters and other hardware without actually having to go into the case to perform an upgrade. New devices install easily. Simply load the driver disk that comes with the hardware, then plug in the device. Windows will see the new hardware and promptly install its drivers.

Newer motherboards will generally have at least two USB 2.0 connectors in the back, and often a hidden one in the front for easy access. The connectors usually come in pairs and are thin and rectangular.

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