201–210 of 222 posts
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Apple just started doing that. It put usb-c on the newer macbooks along with its old/back from the dead magnetic connector.
> Apple just started doing that. It put usb-c on the newer macbooks Just? Apple was probably the first company to go full in on USB-C with Macbook Pro in 2016, 6 years ago
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There are still laptops with various charger types not to mention digital cameras and other electronics that could use usb-c pd but refuse to adopt it. I think the law should be expanded to any kind of electronic device that whose power requirements can be satisfied by the usb-c specifications.
Isn’t USB-C at high power kind of expensive per watt? USB-C is not royalty-free, either.
I don't think it's too expensive if you consider the environment impact not to mention the bad user experience caused by multiple chargers. I also believe at certain point the economies of scale should make it less expensive.
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> We would have been stuck with micro USB for eternity if it wasn't for Apple Amending laws takes much less time than eternity. Lawmakers are people, they can process information and make changes when appropriate. You can be sure that the industry will not forget to remind them when a change seems sensible.
They European Union still does not have a single 230V power plug, decades after being founded. The industry has been asking for it since forever. You, sir, are an optimist.
“Until 1987, mains voltage in large parts of Europe, including Germany, Austria and Switzerland, was 220(±22)V while the UK used 240(±24)V. Standard ISO IEC 60038:1983 defined the new standard European voltage to be 230(±23)V.”
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Why is this “have to pass through bureaucrats” narrative pushed on every single discussion about this topic ? One one hand getting approval for a specific justifiable situation doesn’t seem like an issue for any company with enough means to design a better universal connector. On the other hand these “bureaucrats” are presently updating these laws as the previous one became obsolete and the situation isn’t improving…
Because anyone with experience with the political process knows it’s an absolute nightmare and prone to being extremely slow to react to changes.
I think the EU is a great example of politics that’s slow, but not too slow, and not a nightmare. Yes, this took years, and the discussions probably weren’t all good, but the end result is decent, and that’s what counts.
Other examples are RoHS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restriction_of_Hazardous_Subst...), the GDPR (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Data_Protection_Regula...), and roaming regulations (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_roaming_regulat...)
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So there's no way for a startup to create a new connector because they'd have to go through the USB implementor's forum.
"Think of the startups" is the standard flavour of "think of the children" on Hacker News. No, there's no way for a startup selling handheld mobile phones, tablets, digital cameras, headphones, headsets, handheld videogame consoles, portable speakers, e-readers, keyboards, mice, portable navigation systems, earbuds or laptops to invent their own shiny new connector for charging without providing support for USB-C at…
I know that historically most chargers are just a way to hide the true total cost of ownership. But the electronics industry is now shifting towards innovating in more areas than just shrinking the digital parts. Consumer electronics are a big part of how new stuff gets funded.
> A startup selling floor lamps can't sell their own proprietary power plug and outlet either.
Nobody forbids them from doing that.
While I was pretty sympathetic to the EU law, I am very strongly against this for India. The reason many of the lowest end phones don't have USB-C is because switching to usb-c would make the phones more expensive to produce. Forcing producers to switch will drive up the cost of low-margin smartphones, hurting many Indians for whom affording any smartphone is an issue. It is simply insane to make a regulation that dr…
How much more expensive?
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The EU is watching the USB-IF for further improvements. Currently it is limited to 100 Watt and common devices like latops and smartphones. And they're watching wireless-charging already. If Apple or some of the other usual suspects (Microsoft, Amazon, Google) tries to push a proprietary technology the can act hopefully quicker. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/QANDA_... I'm still looking for the…
I think it is disingenous to compare USB-C to power plugs. USB-C does a million more things than power delivery and there is significantly more room for innovation. > Nobody prevents any manufacturer to add additional charging ports. Except for market demands of smaller phones. My question to you is: would you have wanted micro-USB to be standardized like this?
So thats why iPhones ate getting bigger?
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> We would have been stuck with micro USB for eternity if it wasn't for Apple Amending laws takes much less time than eternity. Lawmakers are people, they can process information and make changes when appropriate. You can be sure that the industry will not forget to remind them when a change seems sensible.
true, but what you then loose is “natural selection”. Why? Because either a new standard is not allowed. Or it is allowed, but then highly probably just one… and the central planning way. One standard/product is worked on, one is accepted as the successo. No selection in the wild of the one that survives (depending of what we talk about, the survivor is sometimes the one that is technically better, sometimes it is th…
Given that this whole thing was about forcing one bad player, Apple, to do the right thing, why not sunset these laws in five to ten years? That way, future innovators don’t have to first get this requirement repealed. USB-C is not the be-all end-all of charging ports. Note for example the female connector with the fragile plastic piece in the middle. Better alternatives will emerge but now they have to pass through…
Because legislatures are incredibly short sighted and ignorant when it comes to technology. ("Would you like to accept cookies on this site you chose to visit, if not it won't work and you should probably leave")
- The ePrivacy Directive from 2002 (!) is (in its opt-in part) about sites storing stuff by whatever mechanism on the user’s computer (not just cookies, despite its nickname of “cookie law”). The explanatory text allows the “storage or GTFO” approach you are referring to. No mention is made of deletion of data, as the directive is purely about client-side storage, and the user can presumably delete that. Any storage technically required for the site to operate (e.g. login cookies) is specifically exempted, it need not even be mentioned.
I would not say this turned out particularly useful, but, well, in 2002 Microsoft was publishing books on .NET thick clients with chapters on interoperability with COM+ distributed transactions and SOAP was the hot new thing not even in Recommendation status yet. Nobody can see the future all that well, large organizations especially.
(I understand a more useful update to that has been stalled by GAFAM lobbying efforts for years now.)
- The General Data Protection Regulation from 2016 (not a typo, there was a generous grace period) is about organizations tracking people through whatever means. The “tracking or GTFO” choice (or its close relative, “tracking, money, or GTFO”, as seen e.g. on French newspaper sites even today) is explicitly illegal, though of course showing ads with no tracking is not in scope. As the tracking data is stored by the organization, the user can demand that it be deleted. Any tracking technically required for the organization to operate (e.g. lists of customers who have used their free trial) is specifically exempted to the extent that the requirement exists (e.g. as long as the free trial is offered).
This one is working out better, although there seem to be tricky international law issues (“directive” vs “regulation”, jurisdiction etc) that mean that enforcement is less efficient that it could have been (e.g. Google and Facebook have mainly been prosecuted via ePD, as the GDPR complaints have to be routed through the Irish authorities, who have jammed their fingers into their ears and gone “lalala can’t hear you”).