Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

EU reaches deal to make USB-C a common charger for most electronic devices

engadget.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

631–640 of 1001 posts

Re: EU reaches deal to make USB-C a common charger for most electronic devices

#631

Post by dfox »

notJim wrote: post #560
leadingthenet wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Let's say the USB consortium releases USB-D with input from Apple, Google, and many other stakeholders [...] If you have to make such an argument, you've already lost. Innovation, particularly disruptive and / or breakthrough innovation, does not happen by committee, no matter how many times over history people tried deluding themselves into thinking that it does. So no, it's not fine.

It's very strange to read this comment on article about USB, which has been developed by committee from the beginning. To me it seems quite innovative, and arguably disruptive to have a single standard for all these things. Maybe USB doesn't clear your personal bar, but then why worry about this at all?

From time to time Intel's marketing tries to sell the idea that USB was invented by this one Intel engineer. Somewhat obviously that is not true.

On the other hand if you compare USB 1.0 to 1.1 it is quite obvious that real implementation experience and throwing out artifacts of the design by committee was quite important for the success.

Re: EU reaches deal to make USB-C a common charger for most electronic devices

#632

Post by worik »

bsnal wrote: post #612
cm2187 wrote: post #532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact interoperability is what enables innovation, vs walled gardens.

Seems like history of computing goes against this

How do you mean?

Would Raspberry Pi have happened without Linux?

What about the evolution of data centres?

I am sure that there are examples from closed systems, but it is not clear that keeping secrets and strict intellectual property spur innovation

Re: EU reaches deal to make USB-C a common charger for most electronic devices

#633

Post by nocoolnametom »

bsnal wrote: post #612
cm2187 wrote: post #532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact interoperability is what enables innovation, vs walled gardens.

Seems like history of computing goes against this

In order to talk to my friends, family, and coworkers I need to have the following apps installed and running: Slack, Teams, Telegram, Signal, WhatsApp, Google Chat/Hangouts/Allo/Whatever, FB Messenger, Discord, Twitter, etc.

It'd take a pretty strong argument to convince me that this is so much more productive and allows for more innovation than the old days when the spec for things like Email, HTTP, IRC, XMPP allowed for a plethora of different tools unrelated to the company sponsoring the tech and people figured out how to make money USING the interoperable tech instead of OWNING the tech.

Re: EU reaches deal to make USB-C a common charger for most electronic devices

#634

Post by dedzycide »

macinjosh wrote: post #483

I’d love to see Apple just leave the EU market or only offer a single old phone model with USB-C added. They have enough money to do it. Bullies like the EU should be stood up to.

Huh? Why is EU the bad guy lol? Every single company except Apple switched to USB-C. Apple is just milking money out of their customers with overpriced Lightning cables. It's sad to see people defend this predatory behavior.

Re: EU reaches deal to make USB-C a common charger for most electronic devices

#635

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

nwienert wrote: post #627
Ekaros wrote: post #620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah what lovely place our technological lives would be without standards, that are done by committees... No standardised wireless technologies like Bluetooth, WiFi, 1G, 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G... Each and every provider and technology manufacturer running their own incompatible networks... Hey, maybe throw away IP and TCP too... Let each site run on their own proprietary protocol...

Those protocols were developed without government mandate.

And so will USB-D

Re: EU reaches deal to make USB-C a common charger for most electronic devices

#637

Post by robonerd »

bloppe wrote: post #485

A lot of people saying "USB-C cables aren't even compatible with each other!" (Nintendo switch etc.) Guess what: that's exactly the problem this regulation is intended to solve. Fake USB-C cables like Nintendo's that have the right shape but do not adhere to spec should gradually disappear along with lightning cables. The regulation actually says that cables can no longer be bundled with the devices themselves, so Ni…

I don't see why "What about innovation?" is taken seriously as an argument anyway. USB-C is more than adequate, we could coast with it for the next hundred years. Nobody is kept up at night by the lack of innovation in AC power plugs, the standards countries have settled on today, while not all equivalent, are all generally satisfactory in practice. Problem solved; stop fixing that which ain't broke and move on to other matters.

Yeah yeah, "640k should be enough for everybody". There comes a point where that is actually true.

Re: EU reaches deal to make USB-C a common charger for most electronic devices

#638

Post by joadha »

leadingthenet wrote: post #506
bloppe wrote: post #485

A lot of people saying "USB-C cables aren't even compatible with each other!" (Nintendo switch etc.) Guess what: that's exactly the problem this regulation is intended to solve. Fake USB-C cables like Nintendo's that have the right shape but do not adhere to spec should gradually disappear along with lightning cables. The regulation actually says that cables can no longer be bundled with the devices themselves, so Ni…

> Let's say the USB consortium releases USB-D with input from Apple, Google, and many other stakeholders [...] If you have to make such an argument, you've already lost. Innovation, particularly disruptive and / or breakthrough innovation, does not happen by committee, no matter how many times over history people tried deluding themselves into thinking that it does. So no, it's not fine.

Would you mind clarifying your argument? How would you define "breakthrough innovation"? I think that's critical to my understanding of your point.

Re: EU reaches deal to make USB-C a common charger for most electronic devices

#639

Post by dfox »

nwienert wrote: post #627
Ekaros wrote: post #620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah what lovely place our technological lives would be without standards, that are done by committees... No standardised wireless technologies like Bluetooth, WiFi, 1G, 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G... Each and every provider and technology manufacturer running their own incompatible networks... Hey, maybe throw away IP and TCP too... Let each site run on their own proprietary protocol...

Those protocols were developed without government mandate.

ETSI (which is the parent organization of 3GPP) is technically an independent non-profit NGO, but in reality it is part of EU bureaucracy and was chartered by EC.

Re: EU reaches deal to make USB-C a common charger for most electronic devices

#640

Post by worik »

chmod600 wrote: post #381
mrtksn wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EU is a densely populated place where having multiple charging networks of incomparable plugs will be horrible. When you are not happy with decisions the governments make, it usually means that you should be involved in the process of making the decisions. Europeans don't trust that the industry will always come up with the best solutions for the user, Americans usually don't trust the government doing something well…

"When you are not happy with decisions the governments make, it usually means that you should be involved in the process of making the decisions." Democracy is a very blunt tool. Very important when needed, but not good for fine tuning on any reasonable timescale.

Democracy is not elections.

Democracy is the freedom and right of involvement for the stakeholders (among other things)

> Democracy is a very blunt tool. Very important when needed, but not good for fine tuning on any reasonable time scale.

Very good for fine tuning at human time scales.

Post reply on HN