In essence, the is a dongle that allows a modern computer without a native infrared port to communicate at high speed (4 Mbps) with legacy devices that still use IrDA.
While IrDA technology is legacy, the U2IrDA Mini is designed to work across a wide array of operating systems: USB to Infrared IrDA Adapter - StarTech.com U2IrDA Mini 4 MBPS FIR USB IrDA 20