Slashdot Mirror
Universal Power Adapter Struggling For Support
Ian Lamont writes "Last year, there was a lot of hopeful discussion surrounding an initiative to have the consumer electronics industry standardize their products on a USB-based universal power adapter devised by Green Plug. Eight months later, the effort has stalled. The reason: manufacturers have balked from using Green Plug's technology. '... Gadget makers seem to have no compelling financial incentive to adopt Green Plug's technology. It would require them to add Green Plug's chip, or similar hardware and software, into every phone, camera, or music player they build, making them more expensive and more complicated to build. Another stumbling block for manufacturers: A universal power supply would kill the market for replacement power supplies. Manufacturers sell these at a steep markup price to customers who lose or break the original one that came with the device, and aren't tech-savvy enough to procure a low-cost generic replacement.' Green Plug is now trying to drum up public outcry through a (slow) website, but the number of supportive comments and votes remains relatively low."
...will become a standard power connector with or without these clowns. It's just about perfect for powering and/or charging just about any handheld device, and with Apple leading the way I expect that USB connectors will start showing up in airplanes, cars, and other such places very soon.
Whatever genius MBA thought that manufacturers would gleefuly license some special connector/protocol just to be able to charge their own products should be taken out back and shot. The language on their web site is absurdly disingenuous in stating the the device-side stuff is free. What benefit is that to the device manufacturer? Do they expect major device manufacturers to promote their proprietary chargers out of the goodness of their heart? What a crock.
Green Plug is now trying to drum up public outcry through a (slow) website
I'm sure posting a link on slashdot will make that website a lot faster. ;)
The few companies that produce and sell devices that have standard USB ports, customers will jump all over that, and the other companies will have to change their products to use USB to become competitive. Either that or the consumer electronics industry is being noncompetitive and the US Department of Justice needs to lay the smack down on them.
Whenever something becomes a commodity it destroys any profits the producers make. Of course THEY like it that you can't just use your standard plug in every device. They get to sell you an extra power supply for your car and one for work/travel. Then when you replace the phone, they make sure your new phone is incompatible with the old plugs so they can sell them all again. Great for electronics producers, bad for consumers. The cost to them of being compatible is a non-issue.
My blackberry, and bluetooth earpiece both charge off mini-usb. I've got a mini-USB to nintendo DS adapter (fits in the DS case nicely) and the only other mobile electronics I use are my electric shaver (stays in the bathroom) and iPod (charges in the FM broadcasting cradle in the car) during my drive to work. USB 3.0 is supposed to handle 1.5amps, or three times what it is designed to handle currently.
Just because the company has the name "green" in it doesn't mean it's automatically a substantially better idea than what already exists (mini-usb) and what is in the pipeline (USB 3.0).
moox. for a new generation.
This being a genuine question - how did regular bog-standard USB win its war against the random assortment of proprietary plugs? I assume there would have been similar issues for manufacturers when USB first rolled around, and we still ended up with USB everywhere
USB was starting to get popular as I was getting my first modern computer though, and I never really saw much of how it grew and developed - did it fight a war, or did it just waltz on into victory? Can this do the same as whatever the heck standard USB connectors did?
There is little reason to even get a universal power adapter. USB is standard for just about every modern phone today along with most low-cost MP3 players, etc. There are a multitude of reasons not to go with a universal power adapter other than "the evil corporations are making us pay more". The most obvious one is that some devices require more power than others. Other reasons are some of the port sizes are too large/small for the device to be useful. For example, a tiny MP3 player might not have room for even a mini USB plug, however it can use the headphone jack to power/sync it. Similarly larger electronics may need more secure connections (as in not falling out, not like encryption) than others. Some might need to be designed to be easily yanked out, others might need ways of making sure it doesn't fall out.
For just about all popular gadgets, it is very very easy to walk into almost any store and get a replacement or third party cable. About the only industry that I would see benefiting from this is laptops, a standard laptop connection cable (like desktops) would be a lifesaver some times.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Tell me, do they have a petitiononline.com page set up too?
It is either this or wireless power charging, these companies are delaying the obvious.
Jonathanjk.com
USB is 5v. USB2.0 maxes out at "5" units of 100mA, with USB3.0 providing a staggering "6" units of 150mA. Thats .5A and .9A. That gives you 2.5 watts and 4.5 watts. There are proposed additions to let USB source up to 1.8A if the port is not sending data, and up to 1.5A in low speed mode.
Looking at the numbers, the whole notion that USB could ever become the dominant standard for power seems laughable to me. USB may be a convenient means of providing a trickle charge, but with batteries getting considerably higher C rates we need 10x beefier power supplies than what USB will ever be capable of.
Power Over Ethernet+ (PoE+) is targetting 24w: thats no quickcharge, but unlike USB its least enough to run a small computer.
I'd love to see this happen, but...
Is GreenPlug a for-profit corporation? If so, then surely they ought to understand that manufacturers won't sign on if it's going to cost them money. Why on earth would they?
If this is going to happen, then somebody (not necessarily GreenPlug) needs to figure out how to make it worth manufacturers' while -- or demonstrate effectively that it will be. If they can't, then it's simply not a viable business model. Whoever figures it out first will earn the ability to make this happen and profit from it.
That would actually be rather cool.
Such a protocol, or extension thereof, would also allow AC powered appliances to report their consumption over a power-line LAN, or indeed, any physical power delivery interface on which a data stream can be piggy-backed.
In Liberty, Rene
My wife lost her phone charger and bought a replacement for $70!!! Can't be more than a few dollars worth of parts and plastic. Pretty obvious that they wouldn't want to jeopardize that income.
I was really looking forward to charging my electric SUV via USB. Now my hopes are dashed!
... and then they built the supercollider.
If a lot of equipment began to be returned to manufacturers, under warranty, because it had been "accidentally" plugged into enough voltage to fry it, I'll bet the manufacturers would decide that they could pass on the high-margin replacement power supply business.
They deserve it.
Motorola have been using USB on their phones for years.
Many no-name MP3 players and other devices are using USB (mostly those that dont have a recharger and generally charge up over USB when plugged in)
If everyone adopted USB (not just for power but data as well) then we wouldn't need 100s of different power adapters. (just one for USB and then those for devices that cant take power over USB like laptops)
Either my Google-fu is weak, or GreenPlug's "standard" is of the "Well, if everybody in the entire world licences our technology, it will be standard" flavor. Unimpressive. If you are all fuzzy and care about bunnies and the earth, then come up with an open spec(which, incidentally, we largely have for low power devices, in the form of USB, and could probably come up with pretty easily for higher power stuff by producing a 12 or 24 volt USB analog). If you just want to have every electronic widget ever depend on your proprietary chips, then fuck you.
Sorry it's not USB -- it requires the proprietary Green Plug chip to work.
They are trying to sell their chip by having us push the manufacturers into making mass purchases of the chip ( or chip schematics) because we "demand it".
And they are trying to sell this "initiative" as a standard without releasing the chip schematics to a standards organization.
proprietary tech company can't force industry to "standardise" on it's proprietary tech? fetch me my tiny violin.
If companies had any incentive to use USB for power then there is nothing stopping them implementing it themselves. As for "powering" laptops and such things then USB just isn't upto the job in terms of voltage / current (also known as power) so they would need to fork USB anyway.
Is the chip design patented? Do you have to purchase from them from the company "leading the charge" or can you make your own? The answers to those questions will determine whether I give a shit or not.
The "not invented here" syndrome collides with an "everybody in the world must buy my product immediately" delusion. Who could have predicted that it would fail?
Another stumbling block for manufacturers: A universal power supply would kill the market for replacement power supplies.
That's the whole bloody point.
And more importantly, how are they involved? USB is already a standard. This isn't rocket science. The standards are already agreed upon. China managed to require a universal power supply, and they can't even get their human-rights in order. All it takes is one "standard device end", one "standard source end" and an agreement over what the upper and lower limits are! We have lots of those! Not just USB, either!
Disclaimer: The opinions and actions of the US Gov't are in no way representative of those held by this author or its ci
Here's a useful ally: Oprah Winfrey. I've heard her complain about all the wall warts she has to lug around. You want a crusade to have impact, get five minutes on her show. If you think the Slashdot effect is awesome, wait till you start getting angry phone calls and emails from millions of outraged Oprah viewers.
IEEE 1394 S3200 supplies up to 45 watts right now. 1.5 amps at up to 30 volts.
I'm sure this will bring up arguments to the contrary, but as a data transmitter, it's also superior to USB in supporting peer-to-peer device communication and multiple hosts per bus.
The old problem of higher per unit costs due to licensing fees has been resolved, as the fees have been discarded.
Does anyone know what the price difference is for basic Firewire vs. USB chips, connectors, and cables these days? That is, say I wanted to make my device (keyboard, MP3 Player, whatever) use either USB or Firewire; anybody know about what the marginal cost difference per unit might be?
Anyway, any time anybody's complaining about the deficiencies of USB, I suggest that we already have a radically superior alternative before us, which needs only wider adoption to rule. In the future, I'd find it ideal if my computer could have only two kinds of ports in back; a bunch of Firewire ports, and a couple of Display Port ports for monitors. Maybe some day we can get that down to one port.
Can anyone tell me how to set my sig on Slashdot?
I fail to see why replacing a myriad of proprietary solutions with a single proprietary solution is supposed to be a good thing.
I would just be happy if all manufacturers would put voltage and polarity indications on their products.
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
I was thinking about making something just like this. Currently sitting on my desk, I have my laptop, 2 external hard drives, a wireless router, a USB hub, and a cell phone charger, some speakers, and an LED desk lamp (powered by another cell phone charger). Except for the speakers and the laptop, all these devices take 12V and/or 5V. I was thinking about getting a small ATX (or similar) power supply and adding some connectors for power. Then I would cut the proprietary end off each gadget's power supply and turn them into adapters for my "standard" connectors (.1" headers would probably work well). That way I could make a cord exactly as long as I need, and I only have to have one power cord plugged into my surge protector, instead of 3 wall-warts and 2 power cords. It would also make my desk neater since I wouldn't have bundles of coiled up cords that are longer than I need.
Here is the maximum power requirements of everything that runs at 12V or 5V. During normal use, I will never max out everything, so I could probably get away with a 120VAC to 12VDC power supply and a PicoPSU or something similar.
8A @ 5V; 40 watts
5A @ 12V; 60 watts
You mean like going on eBay, searching for "iPod power", and buying one for 6-10 bucks? If that's a challenge, are you even capable of operating the device?
From the web site: "Green Plug is the first developer of digital technology enabling real-time collaboration between electronic devices and their power sources..."
First class marketspeak, that is. Collaboration, you say, between electronic devices and power sources. In real time. Using digital technology. Do I need to worry about my devices and power sources becoming mutinous, then?
Or can I just stick with USB which seems to power almost every electronic device I carry around? I daresay I don't actually know WHERE the chargers that came with most of my devices are, since I just charge them all though USB. Green Plug has already lost its battle. The only hope they might have is to embrace and extend the USB standard.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
How am I supposed to get my interocitor working without one of these things?
I agree with the comments on why companies would not adopt this. The cheapest power cord I can find for my wife's laptop is $80. A little ridiculous. At least I can jury rig it to work until I come up with the money for a new laptop.
21st Century Renaissance Man
I see this mistake all the time. The units look similar, mA and mAh. Also I often see mW and mWh confused in the same way.
mAh is a unit of electric charge, like the coulomb. mAh is not a rate of charge, or a rate of energy transfer. It's basically an amount of electrons.
A battery might say how many mAh it can store and dispense. Combined with the voltage, this would tell you how much energy the battery has.
If you leave OpenMoko plugged in long enough you can have an arbitrary amount of mAh(until your battery is full anyhow). It has nothing to do with how fast it charges. Following your link i see you misread the article. It says mA.
Personally I'd rather know how many mW this thing charges at. The page you link doesn't mention the voltage, but USB is specified at 5 (4.75 to 5.25), so that makes a maximum of 1000mA*5V, or 1A*5V = 5 Watts or 5000mW. This is not very fast...
For the OpenMoko it's probably fine, the OpenMoko battery is probably not that big. For a big chunky laptop it would be terrible, it'd take maybe 4x as long to charge as discharge. You wouldn't be able to operate on battery power.
Think about it, if the laptop needs to have enough power to operate USB peripherals, it requires significantly more power than that to operate if it's to function with a few USB peripherals plugged in.
duh. you simply have to replace the factory installed cathermin tube with one that has an inindium complex of +7.
http://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
So no one is jumping on board because they want to keep selling overpriced wall-warts. What they don't realize is how many more products they'd sell overall if recharging the device weren't an issue. How many more little gadgets would be sold if every buyer didn't have to worry about charging--if everyone just knew that no matter where they went they'd be able to charge whatever they had? I've always felt this way. How many more laptops would have been sold (back when they were $3000 and a charge lasted and hour or two) if power supplies were universal and interchangeable? But nooooo, they'd rather hold back progress in the name of selling $150 replacement A/C adapters--a component that is absolutely trivial in design. (For the most part. Apple's MagSafe is pretty much the one innovation in the field in two decades. Otherwise the basics--AC comes in, DC goes out--are trivial.)
Take a look at the fast food companies--how much more food do they sell now that everywhere has free refills on soda? I know the margins on sugar water are great, but the other way to look at it is that it's practically free in the first place and it costs you almost nothing to give away. Sometimes, if you give away a little, you get a lot more back.
The one GOOD thing that has happened to me in this realm lately was discovering that I could take the little A/C-to-USB "cube" that came with my iPhone and a standard big-to-small USB cable that came with a digital camera and use that to charge my Garmin GPS. The promise of USB delivered, after just a decade!!!!!
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Compared to USB's 5V @ 1A (5W) limit or Power over Ethernet's 13W, Firewire can supply 60W. It's also always been a true bus rather than USB's Host/Device architecture, automatically being able to connect devices and computers to each other like USB On the Go is trying for. It's assymetric plugs are easier use without looking and were inspired by the original GameBoy cables for child and adult proofing. Of course patent holders initially charged too much ($0.25, then $1, now free) and the chips used to be too expensive for slow devices like mice and keyboards. Guy who helped design it: http://www.teener.com/firewire_FAQ/ Apple's licensing: http://developer.apple.com/softwarelicensing/agreements/firewire.html
A real standard which is unencumbered by any patent or licensing agreements. A system, regardless of plug type, where the device can communicate its requirements, and the device receives via an alternate line exactly what it asked for. If a device can connect and recharge despite any limited voltage in the communications channel, and still get what it needs to charge then that is the ideal on the technical side of things. But what is more important to the product vendors it not having to pay any technology or patent licensing fees in order to incorporate the design into their products. A quick look at successful Open Source hardware designs such as reprap, fab@home, or the Ardrino project will demonstrate the worth of Open Hardware Standards. If such as design was put on the table which promised to be free to all manufacturers then and only then would you succeed in having a "Standard".
and i thought communism and fascism was bad... i dont even know what ism you are but its kind of scary
My friend was savvy enough to purchase a generic power supply on eBay for his Dell laptop. Turns out that the thing isn't UL listed and makes his laptop do wacky things (if you dont touch the body of the laptop but try to use the touchpad the cursor just moves back and forth really fast), and it doesnt actually charge the battery. You need to be savvy enough to find a generic then additionally savvy enough to find a GOOD one !
I KUT J00 M4NG!!!
What a fucking joke.
I misread the news title and immediately thought "IBM actually created the beast?!?!"
China has enforced the law to require all new cell phone to use standardized USB power adaptors since last year, to cut down adaptors in landfill. Why is democratic, earth-caring nation dragging its feeds?
Phone and camera manufacturers should just switch to "Molex" connectors... :^)
Yes, I was in an airport recently, and there were power outlets with both AC and USB. The future is here.
Yes, but how do you know it only provides power? It might also read or write whatever is plugged into it, install malware, steal your info, or whatever. Microsoft OSs are all too willing to do things a USB port tells them to do.
Contained only one little .png of information...
These clowns get 1/10 for effort. It's a good idea but the way they present it......
I don't think this can happen. There are actually economic disincentives for those in control of the manufacturers to adopt a standard like this. I applaud the altruism here, but it fails to "incentivize" the standardization for the manufacturers. Manufacturers - those in control of mass production - are not so much intent on realizing the full collective efficiency and savings of mass production as they are in twisting the whole process to benefit them and slightly disadvantage those who buy their product. They waste resources and labor on unnecessarily frequent redesign cycles and impose planned obsolescence and proprietary schemes, all in the name of disproportionate profit. The end result is a waste and perversion of the collective potential of mass production.
What Green Plug proposes makes PERFECT sense from an altruistic, socialistic, Big Picture perspective... which also means it makes absolutely NO sense to these corporate CEOs because they expend NO mental energy on such unimportant things.
Having said that, I'd like to point out that one company has produced a power supply design that in some ways is actually BETTER than the Green Plug standard: Kensington. Yes, that Kensington. They have a series of true variable-output DC power supplies which have a rather unique way of powering a wide range of different devices that require different voltages and current; I have one myself, a model 33197 (I actually have "last year's" model that uses a rather proprietary cable, but apparently this most recent one uses a standard USB cable in the design. It has a five-pin DC output jack, to which a cable attaches that has a female plug on the other end; there is a series of "tips" which connect to the end of the cable, and it is these tips which actually determine both the physical attachment method to a device AND the voltage and current. There are tips available for virtually every laptop, cellphones, even one for my old HP iPAQ hx4700 (which is a REALLY weird one).
I believe the Kensington design works by the tips creating a feedback loop of some sort with the power supply proper, communicating through one or several of those pins precisely what voltage and current to supply. It strikes me as quite ingenious. I have no idea what specific mechanism this feedback loop employs, because I haven't yet reverse-engineered one of the tips to see what makes it tick.
So what Kensington has produced is a 3-24VDC, 6A, 120W variable output DC power supply that, with a proper tip, can power virtually any device that falls within its output specs. They have already anticipated the vast majority of common devices, and can easily produce others as the need arises. Of course I'd rather see the whole thing open sourced, but that again is the difference between altruism and harsh Darwinian reality. Regardless, I think what Kensington has created could very easily become a standard even superior to what Green Plug proposes.
I use are my electric shaver (stays in the bathroom
Actually my electric razor does charge over USB. I use USB chargeable AA batteries in it. I got some as a promotional item but usbcell.com sell them online. I have to admit I was skeptical but these things really are brilliant.
Now if only they would start selling the AAA ones I would not need to buy replacement batteries for my headphones once a month.
That's part of it (the standard wall-wart), but they're also claiming that it's "smart" - as the home page says:
With Green Plug, however, intelligent power supplies communicate with electronic devices and agree upon device power requirements for all devices connected to them. All cables and connectors are uniform; so, they work with any device! Being intelligent power sources, they eliminate wasted âoephantom powerâ (power that is wasted when chargers are plugged in and either connected to devices that are fully charged or have no devices connected to them) and improve power utilization and efficiency.
This sig is just as redundant as the rest of this posting
They just want to make money selling proprietary car-chargers. Great for them, not great for me, and I'm the customer. I might like your phone but if it's not using USB to charge it, then I'm not buying it.
I *really* wish laptops would standardize on 12volt power, and not insist on random 13.5v,15, 16, 18. There's so much 12v gear out there for use in cars, and there are portable 12vdc power packs for powering that stuff when you're not running your car, and even if you need a filter adapter of some sort to clean up car alternator power, that's still a lot less trouble than having to drag along an inverter to convert 12vdc to 110vac and a laptop power brick to convert it back down to 16v or whatever.
Currently if I want to work in my backyard for more than an hour or two (or run the screen brighter than it'll run on batteries) I can drag out an extension cord, but it'd be much easier to carry my car-jumper which could power the thing all laptop all day if it would run on 12v.
And USB obviously rocks for things that need that level of power. I've had several devices like portable disk drives or DVD drives that need more power than one USB connection gives - so they use two USB cables, one with a regular B connector for data, and another with a round power connector on the end that just provides power.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
All of Apple's portable devices charge over USB or, if it's an older iPod, a Firewire port. This has always been the case. You're looking at the wrong end of the equation.
It's not irrelevant because only one end of many cables (including Apple's) are standard USB connectors, not both ends. There is no technological reason Apple could not sync and charge via a standard USB (or Firewire) connector on the device. They simply chose to use a proprietary cable instead which means we all have to lug around an additional cable which cannot be used with any non-Apple device.
If you only have the one device you might not care but if you are like me and use many portable devices you end up carrying a rats nest of proprietary cables every time you travel. It's unnecessary, annoying, and wasteful.
You still have to bring your own cords.
I don't think anyone said otherwise but we should only have to bring ONE standard USB cord, and one transformer. Not a different power cord, data cord and transformer for each device we wish to charge. For devices with higher power requirements, standard cables could be used as well. There is no reason my Thinkpad needs a special power cord and transformer but every laptop brand has one.
On planes and in public spaces where this would make a difference, you'd always have to supply your own cables, so the device end is mostly irrelevant.
I disagree because it is wasteful to haul around 20 different power and data cables. In my opinion everything should use a standard cable whenever possible. The fact that USB can carry data in addition to power should reduce the needed number of cords further.
For example I have a Nokia phone and Nokia mostly uses their own proprietary power connector. While I have charging cables for my phone with a USB connector on the "wall" end the device end is a proprietary Nokia connector. There is no technological reason I can divine for that choice - it is simply a lock in scheme. Plus if I want to sync my phone's data, Nokia has a *different* cable for that - again for no technological reason whatsoever. I also have to carry a special cable for my iPod for no good reason.
Every time USB comes up, there is always somebody who pimps Firewire. Guess what, Firewire is dead. Moral: Dont charge an arm and a leg to license your silly data cable thing.
We are glad to see such passion around universal power. Thanks to Slashdot we've received over 2,000 new votes on http://www.iwantmygreenplug.com/ in under 24 hours and hundreds of new supportive comments http://www.iwantmygreenplug.com/comments.php Many excellent points have been raised here and we hope you find these additional comments beneficial.
USB is indeed a universal standard. It does not require voltage negotiation, since the voltage level is fixed at 5V. By default, Green Plug-enabled power hubs provide power to USB-powered devices. Green Plug also enables any load (electronic product) to safely accept power from any power source. Why is it that each electronic product must include a device-specific power adapter, resulting in billions of them being discarded as eWaste? It's because they all require unique voltages and have different maximum current levels. Ideally, homes and offices would have multi-port power hubs that dynamically adjust to the needs of electronic products connected to them. This would eliminate the need for product vendors to have to produce disposable, device-specific power adapters for each product shipped.
There are several power adapters today that configure output voltage to the exact voltage needed by connected devices. Green Plug's method is unique in that the power negotiation is based upon digital communication. Not only can initial voltages be matched to connected devices, but smart power hubs can dynamically react to changing conditions. New monitoring and control applications are possible when there's two way communication between powered devices and their power sources. Green Plug's interactive communication model enables standby power shutoff and dynamic reconfiguration of output power based upon changing state of powered devices.
Someday, Green Plug's GreentalkTM protocol may become a standard. A non-profit industry consortium, the Alliance for Universal Power Supplies (http://www.allianceforuniversalpower.org), has been set up to bring manufacturers and other stakeholders together to drive, develop and promote standards for the power supply and electronics products industry. Green Plug has only just begun working with major CE device manufacturers that all recognize that the existing one-to-one power model is broken. It costs manufacturers a lot of money to include power adapters in their products; consumers hate them (who doesn't have a drawer full?); and they are normally thrown away when they are in perfect working order. That's not sustainable and there is a better way. Green Plug is making terrific progress in its discussions with the most popular vendors. Decisions that affect hundreds of millions or billions of product units are not made quickly. Our first customer demonstrated an award-winning power adapter at CES and we showcased several concept systems at CES that showed interoperable power see http://blog.greenplug.us/2009/01/green-plug-and-innergie-the-universal-power-adapter-has-arrived.html . We've begun working with influential organizations that see the potential for the new open systems power model http://www.greenplug.us/supporters.php.
Greentalk is licensed free of charge to qualified manufacturers of load devices (electronic products that consume power.) On the load device, Greentalk can run in an existing processor and in some cases can be implemented for no added cost. Even in devices that require hardware modifications to run Greentalk, the cost of implementing it in the load is a tiny fraction of the cost of an external power adapter. Even legacy devices can get power from a Green Plug-enabled power hub through a smart cable. If we could get beyond the chicken-and-egg scenario and imagine that smart power hubs are ubi
I could add dummy load resistors.
We are glad to see such passion around universal power. Thanks to Slashdot we've received over 2,000 new votes on http://www.iwantmygreenplug.com/ in under 24 hours and hundreds of new supportive comments http://www.iwantmygreenplug.com/comments.php Many excellent points have been raised here and we hope you find these additional comments beneficial.
USB is indeed a universal standard. It does not require voltage negotiation, since the voltage level is fixed at 5V. By default, Green Plug-enabled power hubs provide power to USB-powered devices. Green Plug also enables any load (electronic product) to safely accept power from any power source. Why is it that each electronic product must include a device-specific power adapter, resulting in billions of them being discarded as eWaste? It's because they all require unique voltages and have different maximum current levels. Ideally, homes and offices would have multi-port power hubs that dynamically adjust to the needs of electronic products connected to them. This would eliminate the need for product vendors to have to produce disposable, device-specific power adapters for each product shipped.
There are several power adapters today that configure output voltage to the exact voltage needed by connected devices. Green Plug's method is unique in that the power negotiation is based upon digital communication. Not only can initial voltages be matched to connected devices, but smart power hubs can dynamically react to changing conditions. New monitoring and control applications are possible when there's two way communication between powered devices and their power sources. Green Plug's interactive communication model enables standby power shutoff and dynamic reconfiguration of output power based upon changing state of powered devices.
Someday, Green Plug's GreentalkTM protocol may become a standard. A non-profit industry consortium, the Alliance for Universal Power Supplies http://www.allianceforuniversalpower.org/ has been set up to bring manufacturers and other stakeholders together to drive, develop and promote standards for the power supply and electronics products industry. Green Plug has only just begun working with major CE device manufacturers that all recognize that the existing one-to-one power model is broken. It costs manufacturers a lot of money to include power adapters in their products; consumers hate them (who doesn't have a drawer full?); and they are normally thrown away when they are in perfect working order. That's not sustainable and there is a better way. Green Plug is making terrific progress in its discussions with the most popular vendors. Decisions that affect hundreds of millions or billions of product units are not made quickly. Our first customer demonstrated an award-winning power adapter at CES and we showcased several concept systems at CES that showed interoperable power see http://blog.greenplug.us/2009/01/green-plug-and-innergie-the-universal-power-adapter-has-arrived.html . We've begun working with influential organizations that see the potential for the new open systems power model http://www.greenplug.us/supporters.php.
Greentalk is licensed free of charge to qualified manufacturers of load devices (electronic products that consume power.) On the load device, Greentalk can run in an existing processor and in some cases can be implemented for no added cost. Even in devices that require hardware modifications to run Greentalk, the cost of implementing it in the load is a tiny fraction of the cost of an external power adapter. Even legacy devices can get power from a Green Plug-enabled power hub through a smart cable. If we could get beyond the chicken-and-egg scenario and imagine
This doesn't help the efficiency of the system[1].
1: I've done this, too, back in the day. Had a big, full-height 15MB MFM ST-419 Seagate drive which I wanted to use along with my (much faster) half-height 20MB Seagate ST-225 drive. Trouble was, the big-ass 15MB drive couldn't spin up and initialize fast enough to satisfy the controller in my XT at boot time. Answer? Another power supply, with its own switch, so I could manually power the full-height drive up before the rest of the system. I scored a full-sized AT power supply which seemed to work OK, but had an issue whereby it would only behave if it were substantially loaded on the 12V line. A friend and I tried to fix it properly, desoldering caps and checking them with a meter, and eventually gave up. The final solution, which worked until that computer was retired, was a pair of sandcast resistors hung right in front of the exhaust fan, loading the 12V rail down enough just enough so that the PSU would still function. Computers haven't been anywhere near as much fun since[2].
2: Kids, these days, with their video card overclocks and SLI RAM. Get off my lawn[3]!
3: I write this from an overclocked SLI 9800GT quad-core SLACR Q6600 Alienware box. Kids, indeed[4].
4: Get off my lawn anyway. :)
Kid-proof tablet..
China And South Korea have already mandated mini usb chargers.
Do you think cell phone manufactures could ignore those to 2 markets.
Or r&d a new model specifically for those markets.
Deserves some thought, the two countries listed are,
not the only countries who have passed laws.
There are many more countries who have it for consideration.
I was part of a project by Intel over 15 years ago to standardize laptop batteries. Great idea - right? Cheap mass produced batteries, buy a new one easily at your corner store, swap with other users). The initiative had support from some major battery manufacturers, and when it failed most people assumed that the laptop manufacturers wanted to sell high priced batteries. Turns out that design constraints (heat, space, balance...), lead to batteries being designed in last, to fit whatever space was available (hence the weird asymmetric shapes we still see today). So often the true interests that hold back benefits to the consumer are obvious only with hindsight.
My iPod doesn't get charged by USB. My friend's iPhone doesn't get charged by USB.
Maybe you have some special iPod and iPhone that is somehow different from every iPod produced since 2004. Somehow I doubt it though...