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

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

#751

Post by tomp »

robonerd wrote: post #637
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 ot…

This argument would sound less hollow if there weren’t two existing superior (from a user experience perspective) alternatives already on the market.

Apple’s Lightning (thinner than USB-C) and MagSafe (safer than USB-C for charging laptops… so glad Apple is transitioning back to it for M2 Airs)

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

#752

Post by ciupicri »

zaik wrote: post #701
ciupicri wrote: post #686

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm willing to bet that your friends and family wouldn't be happy if the European Union would mandate using IRC everywhere. Heck, why not go further and stick to the good old ntalk [1]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk_(software)

What about the XMPP standard? I use it everyday for messaging family and friends. WhatsApp is basically an unfederated XMPP provider.

I used XMPP around 2003 when it was still called Jabber. I can't say there's something major wrong with it (only XML verbosity comes to my head), it's just the idea of making it mandatory. By the way how come some EU officials use Zoom? [1] Where are those good open standards?

[1]: https://meeteu.eu/events/

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

#753

Post by tomp »

cm2187 wrote: post #532
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…

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

Is that why all PC (interoperable) laptops are inferior to MacBooks?

Your statement might hold for software but definitely doesn’t hold for hardware.

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

#754

Post by Karunamon »

mrtksn wrote: post #723
kukx wrote: post #699

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree 100%. The cookie law is the most visible failure of these regulations. I feel like they should pay me from their own pockets each time I have to click the cookie banner. And by their own pockets I mean the money they got from other sources than taxpayers money. Of course someone will argue that the intentions were good. Often they are! But it does not make it much better.

What failure? Now everyone knows they are tracked and it's an actual issue. Besides, the websites could have chosen not to have that cookie window.

Most people are more bothered by the annoyance then some nebulous, intangible “tracking“ that will likely never have a visible effect on their lives.

Outside of high tech places like HackerNews, mention the tracking and you’ll get a shrug, mention the cookie banners and you’ll get a “yeah I hate that crap“

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

#755

Post by biztos »

robonerd wrote: post #637
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 ot…

> the lack of innovation in AC power plugs

Having lived in a country (Thailand) where both Euro and US plugs work just fine as long as you mind your voltage, I have become quite annoyed at that lack of innovation.

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

#756

Post by morcheeba »

bestouff wrote: post #227
andrewla wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not correct so far as I can tell -- the amendment to directive 2014/53/EU [1] says > Hand-held mobile phones, tablets, digital cameras, headphones, headsets, handheld videogame consoles and portable speakers, in so far as they are capable of being recharged via wired charging, shall: > (a) be equipped with the USB Type-C receptacle, as described in the standard EN IEC 62680-1-3:2021 ‘Universal serial bus inte…

Well they asked everyone to agree on a standard 10 years ago, but that didn't happen (just because of Apple). So now they forcefully decided.

Yep. Apple came out with their own connector because USB Mini (where everyone else wanted to go) sucked. We got a robust, flippable connector. All in all, using only two kinds of connectors over 14 years (so far) seems far better than the industry average (proprietary, mini, micro, C)

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

#757

Post by chmod600 »

worik wrote: post #640
chmod600 wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

Let's say I invent a better connector tomorrow. Nobody other than me really knows if it's better or not. The only way for me to convince people is to get it out there in the market so people can try it.

How does that work by voting or any other democratic activity?

Others will be unconvinced that it's really better, for the same reason people are skeptical of startup ideas until they become mainstream. So nobody will want to update the standard. So I couldn't release it in the market to prove that it's better, because that would be "lock-in". And the idea would die.

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

#758

Post by midislack »

ciupicri wrote: post #686
nocoolnametom wrote: post #633

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 allow…

I'm willing to bet that your friends and family wouldn't be happy if the European Union would mandate using IRC everywhere. Heck, why not go further and stick to the good old ntalk [1]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk_(software)

Seems like a disingenuous argument, why not make a real one?

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

#759

Post by nonethewiser »

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…

> The regulation actually says that cables can no longer be bundled with the devices themselves,

Wait, what? That's idiotic

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

#760

Post by alerighi »

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 think this is a stupid thing. Repurposing a commonly used connector for other things to reuse cheap connectors and cables is something that is usually done in the electronic industry (e.g. my oscilloscope use an HDMI socket for the logic analyzer input, you have plenty of lines and the connector is cheap and good). It's not uncommon to design a board and use type-C only for power (5V input, without the circuitry to handle power delivery, so you must connect a suitable power supply) or for other things (TTL serial data).

> 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

Which spec? There are a multitude of them! What we do, adhere all to the best spec and to only feed 5V power to a device (that could be done with 2 wires) require the same cable used to connect a thunderbolt device at 40Gb/s? Of course not, since the first one costs a couple of dollars, the second one tens of dollars, the first one can be as long as voltage drop permits it to be, the second one needs to be maximum 1 meter, the first one needs no shielding at all, the second one needs to be heavily shielded, that not only increases cost but makes it bulkier. And again, does a data cable that is used for thunderbolt connection (assuming that the thunderbolt device is externally powered) be designed to carry the full 5A of the spec? 5A is a lot of current, it will require bigger conductors, but for a data cable it doesn't make sense!

Type-C is a standard that makes to me not a lot of sense: they wanted to create the one connector that fits all, while in the past they designed different connector, one for each device, not because they wanted you to buy more cables but to avoid confusion in customers, if the cable fits it works I used to say back in the day, the VGA connector was physically different from a serial port, the PS2 connector was not the same as a parallel port, even if they could have done everything with one port they didn't.

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