WebUSB, developed by Reilly Grant and Ken Rockot, has been pushed into the W3C WICG in an effort to create a platform that can be referenced by browser manufacturers.
The WebUSB API provides a way to securely expose USB device services to the web. It provides a familiar API to developers using existing native USB libraries and exposes device interfaces defined by existing specifications. With this API, hardware manufacturers will be able to build cross-platform JavaScript SDKs for their devices. This is a good thing for the Web, because instead of waiting for a new device to be popular enough for browsers to provide specific APIs, new and innovative hardware can be built for the Web from the beginning.
WebUSB is a Javascript API that allows web pages to access connected USB devices. The USB devices here refer to system and industrial USB devices. Through the WebUSB API, we can connect USB devices, such as keyboards, mice, 3D printers and hardware drivers to the Internet of Things, and even locate them on Web pages. The purpose of this product is to help hardware manufacturers make their USB devices universal across platforms (including the Web), without the need to write local drivers or SDKs for specific platforms. In addition to controlling hardware, WebUSB can also install and perform other important tasks through a web page. However, this draft version of the API does not transfer files.
Of course, the current WebUSB is only a draft version and has not officially adopted the W3C standard. Its development is still a work in progress, but we now have the full WebUSB code base visible on Github.
