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Japan is Testing USB Phone Charging Stations in Public Transport Buses (thenextweb.com)
According to Japanese news outlet IT Media, a public transport bus in the Tokyo area has introduced, and is currently testing, USB charging stations for commuter phones and tablets. From a report: While the local Bureau of Transportation hasn't formally announced or confirmed the trials, numerous passengers so far have reported seeing the charging ports. The service runs free of charge, with at least five of these wall-mounted charging hotspots placed inside the bus. According to reports, the service is currently available solely in a single bus. It remains unclear how long testing will continue or whether it will eventually roll out to more buses. Japan isn't the only country to have offered phone charging stations in public transport vehicles. Last September, London also equipped a limited number of busses with USB chargers. Similarly, Singapore ran trials with wall-mounted phone chargers on at least 10 buses in September last year.
We've had those for in quite a few buses for a year or so.
Fun to see public USBs rise in popularity with credit card skimmers. At least we're all smart enough to use USB condoms, right?
Here in the UK all modern buses has charging ports. I even advised my son on how to make a charge only cable so they couldn't be used to inject malware onto his devices.
In Japan, it is a different culture, but here in the US, free USB charging ports would not last a day before someone plugs in a USB Killer, squirts epoxy in the holder, or just urinates on the plug out of spite.
USB charging ports on one bus in Japan. What will they think of next? Devices attached to the seats on which a person can rest their arms? Texturing on the floor to prevent a person from slipping if their shoes are wet? Electrically operated devices affixed to the interior of the bus that emit photons so people can see when it's night time?
Slashdot, please keep us abreast of such groundbreaking advancements!
Better known as 318230.
[..] the service is currently available solely in a single bus.
But on the plus side, it's now a Universal Serial Bus!
Wow! Almost all new buses built the past few years have USB ports for charging, at least in western Sweden where the Volvo buses are built. What is there to test? Just do it!
- Henrik
- when the Shadows descend -
The bus I use regularly has had USB charge points and free wifi for a few months now. The wifi is pretty bad and the chargers are 1 amp though, but it's a step in the right direction. http://www.expressandstar.com/news/transport-news/2016/09/08/all-aboard-8m-luxury-buses-take-to-streets-of-the-black-country/
USB charging ports on public transport has been in place all over the world for a long time. Why is anyone interested?
Ive seen this in plenty of busses in Greater Copenhagen.
I dont quite trust strange USB ports enough to actually plug my phone into one tho.
I was on a Stagecoach bus recently in the UK and they had a USB charging port placed fairly low between each set of two seats (plus ports on the side below the window for the front sets of seats). I believe their fleet refit in late 2016 added them in. Apart from nicer (faux?) leather seats, the new bus also had *much* better onboard free wi-fi than their previous generation of buses too. A shame no-one but me ever seems to use the free wi-fi on the bus though!
Why not wireless? It eliminates the USB hacking concern. But there is more...no cable breakage, tangling, connector problems.
Fight Spammers!
Denver has had USB charging on its regional buses for over a year now.
NYC introduced a whole fleet of buses with USB charging ports (and WiFi) in May 2016.
I'd just let the USB ports charge my external battery. Then, charge my good stuff with the battery. There are also "USB condoms" which cut the data ports and only allow charging.
It's going to be hilarious when all the new MacBook owners have finished converted everything to USB-C and then realize they can't plug things into a bus without a dongle.
If this sort of thing becomes commonplace, my recommendation to you all is to get a charge-only USB cable for your phone, i.e. one that does not have the Data pair connected. Unless, of course, you really don't care if your phone gets hacked. Technology like this could easily be subverted, either by governments or by criminal organizations, to become attack vectors against unsuspecting smartphone owners.
If you can't find a 'charge only' USB cable, you can make your own easily enough out of a normal USB cable, even without any technical expertise to speak of. Take a regular USB cable appropriate for your phone, and with an Xacto or similar razor knife, carefully slit the outer jacket open lengthwise for 2 to 3 inches. You'll find a braided shield, foil shielding, or both; open these up and move them aside so you can get to the 4 wires within. You'll find a red wire and a black wire; leave these alone, they're 'power' and 'ground' respectively. The other pair of wires (very often green and white), twisted together, are the 'Data' pair; cut these, and remove a small section so they don't accidentally connect to each other again. Wrap the cable back up in electrical tape, and you're done. You should be able to plug into any USB port and charge your phone with no data connection to the phone from the port you're charging from.
Why is it not available in more public places?
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I think the real question is how much damage a subverted USB port can do even without some data-related hack. Most phones won't use the cable for data unless you say it's okay. What happens if the voltage isn't 5V but 500V instead?
How resilient are devices (including external batteries) to flagrant violations of the USB spec? Is there a voltage regulator in the phone? That's usually in the brick you plug into the wall to convert to USB. What about a current regulator? Capacitors can do nasty things do devices that aren't protected.
Security Vector Alert. It seems to me that public UBS charging ports are a way for security vulnerabilities to be spread amongst the popululation. I assume that someone is already working on a way to implant malware in those ports. It's like kissing everyone in the city during an Ebola epidemic.
(Read it as an unordered bullet list with ... and profit. Thank you. )
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
That there is a big-ass charger. Dang, I miss my ole charger.
There is a USB controller in that external battery. Usually firmware flash-able. It is not safe enough. Have them provide 110-220V outlets and plug your trusted AC charger in it.
All I see is another piece of useful technology that would never survive in North America, because we can't have nice things.
If this was made available in the US, I would give it a month before people started using USB killers, or suing the city for a million dollars and claiming it somehow 'broke' their phone.
The much vaunted Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority is still stuck in the 20th century as far as fare collection, let alone having charging stations or mobile hotspots. But then Trump is going to make everything ... just great. It'll be just great. Puke!
Cambridge MA has benches with solar USB chargers all around the city. Maybe you should move to a better neighborhood?
DC Connector buses have USB ports of them. Not just one bus, multiple. The standard WMATA buses don't yet have it though.
A public USB port should be approached like a public fleshlight.
Poland had them for years. It's only news when Japan/USA/Germoney/UK catch up with the times.
I don't know what this article is talking about. I live in Shizuoka prefecture and my local bus has had USB charging stations on the back of each seat for a few years. AND it has free wifi. It is possible that some Tokyo bus company is exploring this concept, but they are *far* from the first.
So are trips on the bus in Japan a waste of time time or do their phones have insufficient battery capacity?