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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

#871

Post by K0SM0S »

reaperducer wrote: post #770
jchw wrote: post #744

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When in history has interoperability not been a catalyst for innovation? Look at everything people do in browsers now. Or if that's not to your taste, perhaps the era of BASIC is a better example. Not all standards are good, but a decent standard is better, or at least much more practically useful, than a lot of better but incompatible proprietary equivalents. Of course it doesn't have to be mandated, and in the past…

When in history has interoperability not been a catalyst for innovation? Most of it, including most of the history of computers. Competition almost always breeds innovation. It's basic economics, and why people get upset by monopolies and such.

I don't think this needs to be a dichotomy.

Different conditions beget different types of innovation. Interoperable systems evolved things (paradigms, models, languages…) that competing ones couldn't, and the opposite is also true. The world needs both, and probably everything in-between.

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

#872

Post by brodock »

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.

They happen between walled gardens, them they sponsor a comitee to turn into a standard. The only difference between current and standard based is a bunch of extra burocracy where your competitor will try to fit their custom walled garden extension that is hard to implement to give them an edge.

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

#873

Post by least »

marssaxman wrote: post #831
least wrote: post #713

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't the case in the US, either. How much influence do you think one person in the US, one of hundreds of millions of people, should normally have? Your power to influence policy is obviously going to dilute the further up the chain of government you go. You could involve yourself in local politics where the population of people is much smaller (and consequentially, your influence is much larger), or you could…

> This isn't the case in the US, either. I was paraphrasing Gilens and Page, from the linked research article. In their words, they found that "economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence". If there has been subsequent research which con…

> Please pardon my inadvertent US-centrism! If you live in a country with a functioning democracy, of course it would make sense to participate.

This implies that you think that the reason the person believes that they should participate in government is because they don't live in the US and as such, have a functioning democracy and can have an impact on policy. I am asserting that people can have an effect on policy, just that you are more likely to have an effect when you are dealing with local government. This doesn't require a research paper to figure out; There are approximately 334 million Americans. The "average citizen" in this case would have almost no influence whatsoever on policy even in a "functioning democracy" and this is how it is designed. However, if you narrow that down to your state, there is a much lower population and the policies implemented will have a more direct impact on you. If you go even further and look at it from a county, township, or city level, you, by the virtue of their being a small fraction of the people potentially involved in governance, have a much larger effect on policy. The issue is that it seems that people don't want to affect how their town is governed, they want to make mass impact with big changes in policies at a national level.

Special interest groups and economic elites affecting national policy isn't a unique trait to the United States and they are not a valid reason to encourage people against participating in government. You are teaching helplessness which just perpetuates the issue.

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

#874

Post by spoonjim »

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…

Not sure how a technologist could think that USB-C is the best that we could do. It could be smaller, easier to attach in the dark, easier to attach with one hand, etc. etc.

The government is not good at technology. They should step out of the way and let the consumer decide.

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

#876

Post by stubish »

biztos wrote: post #755
robonerd wrote: post #637

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In Thailand I became quite annoyed by the lack of grounding. If your sockets where actually modern enough to have ground, it is rarely connected to anything at all, or sometimes just screwed to the wall. Rare to find a ground spike in a dwelling. Common to get zapped by your shower's electric water heater.

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

#877

Post by kalleboo »

mort96 wrote: post #593
kalleboo wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically what I'm assuming is that Apple will adopt USB-C on the iPhone Pro models (since they need faster file transfer for the huge 4K ProRes video files anyway, and they were happy to adopt USB-C on the iPad "Pro" models early) and drop the ports completely on the non-Pro models.

I wonder if they'll do that with all their "Pro" stuff. Like, would the AirPods be Qi-only or Lightning+Qi-only, with USB-C reserved for AirPods Pro? Or would they go USB-C across the board? Or does Apple imagine a world in which their ideal "Pro" customer, with their iPad Pro, iPhone Pro, MacBook Pro and AirPods Pro, keeps around a Lightning charger for only their earbuds while literally everything else uses USB-C?…

The EU law also requires headphones and headsets recharge over USB-C.

The annex says "Hand-held mobile phones, tablets, digital cameras, headphones, headsets, handheld videogame consoles and portable speakers"

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

#878

Post by shawnz »

tomp wrote: post #751
robonerd wrote: post #637

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

So in the 15 years since micro-USB was developed, that is just one vendor which has been able to produce something better, and it happens to be the most valuable corporation in the world with access to economics of scale that no other manufacturer could compete with. Are you saying that's a valid justification that allowing manufacturers the freedom to innovate on charging ports is more important than interoperability?

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

#879

Post by FactolSarin »

biztos wrote: post #755
robonerd wrote: post #637

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How could both be compatible? US plugs are meant operate at 120 volts, EU at 240. I don't see how both could be supported safely.

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

#880

Post by sbf501 »

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #188
Hamcha wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a new thing. Car design has been dictated by regulations for decades and while I'm sure it has definitely stopped some novel designs from getting out there, I think we can be mostly thankful that we don't live in a sea of heterogeneous (let alone hazardous) designs. Cars can still look cool, but not to the point of being a detriment. USB-C is a pretty lax standard (for good and bad) and at the end of the day…

> Cars can still look cool compare cars from 40s-70s to what came after, its a different world you can argue it was worth it, but you can’t argue cars didn’t get homogeneous and boring in the process

who cares what your car looks like. owning one is a hassle and a money sink and i resent that i've lived in 5 cities who have de-prioritized mass transit.

cars look boring is like saying it's a bummer cancer isn't cool.

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