LG Monitor Connects Using Only a USB Cable

The L206W receives all of its display information from a USB 2.0 connection using technology from DisplayLink.

You can use already use a USB connection to connect a keyboard, mouse, webcam, PDA, camera, MP3 player, and dozens of other peripherals, but now you can add one more big item to that list: your monitor. LG Electronics launched the first North-American line of USB-capable monitors on Monday, which use a USB 2.0 cable to deliver HD-quality graphics without the traditional DVI or VGA connector.

LG’s FlatronWide L206W 20-inch widescreen monitor will be the first display to offer a USB connection, with technology from DisplayLink, a California company. Using DisplayLink’s DL-160 chip, the monitor receives a stream of information from a virtual graphics card running on the host computer, which it then reconstructs into the display image.

Besides delivering graphics through USB, the monitor also features a built-in USB hub that can be used to connect other devices and even up to three additional monitors. DisplayLink claims that up to six monitors will be supported in the future.

 “For too long, multi-monitor computing has been too costly and complex,” said Hamid Farzaneh, president and CEO of DisplayLink, in a statement. “But now it is made simple thanks to DisplayLink’s network display technology.”

DisplayLink offers its technology to a variety of hardware vendors, including Samsung, Toshiba, Kensington, I/O Gear and Sunix.