6 ms·

> 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 alr

> 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.

tankenmate 4y ago
The directive is designed to make things easier for customers and the environment, not OEMs per se (even though there will be benefits for a number of companies).
Bayart 4y ago
Standards happen by committee. They're not disruptive and that's the point.
- afpx 4y ago
  Standards bodies work like other technical teams. They actually produce useful output if they're fed sufficient requirements and stakeholder input.
earthboundkid 4y ago
> Innovation, particularly disruptive and / or breakthrough innovation, does not happen by committee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD#History Never make an absolutist statement. They're always wrong. :-)
- ithkuil 4y ago
  > They're always wrong Lol. An interesting version of the liars paradox.
10x-dev 4y ago
I'm ok if my life doesn't get disrupted every 2 years with a new type of incompatible connection between my devices. Maybe we could put all that innovation and consumer inconvenience into resolving climate change.
- nickpp 4y ago
  Maybe we could’ve put all that regulatory effort and politician time into resolving not even climate change, but just EU's dependence on cheap Russian fossil fuels.
notJim 4y ago
It's very strange to read this comment on article about USB, which has been developed by committee from the beginning. To me it seems quite innovative, and arguably disruptive to have a single standard for all these things. Maybe USB doesn't clear your personal bar, but then why worry about this at all?
- dfox 4y ago
  From time to time Intel's marketing tries to sell the idea that USB was invented by this one Intel engineer. Somewhat obviously that is not true. On the other hand if you compare USB 1.0 to 1.1 it is quite obvious that real implementation experience and throwing out artifacts of the design by committee was quite important for the success.
  - warning26 4y ago
    > On the other hand if you compare USB 1.0 to 1.1 it is quite obvious that real implementation experience and throwing out artifacts of the design by committee was quite important for the success. This sounds like it has some interesting history there; do you have any recommended sources to read about the transition between USB 1.0 and 1.1?
  - ghaff 4y ago
    I was going to disagree as I used to know one the standards people at Intel quite well (who always regretted that USB was orientation specific)--and I didn't remember anything like that. But you're right. Intel was pushing Ajay Bhatt was one of the people Intel highlighted as a face behind Intel's technology. (Although the campaign wasn't specific to USB.) https://www.oregonlive.com/business/2009/05/intel_ad_campaign_remakes_rese.html https://www.oregonlive.com/business/2009/05/intel_ad_campaig...
  - bsder 4y ago
    > Somewhat obviously that is not true. Especially since I know that several people at Digital Equipment Corporation had to do the signal integrity analysis for Intel for the original USB standard.
- 4y ago
akira2501 4y ago
> Innovation, particularly disruptive and / or breakthrough innovation We are talking about power cables here. Are you anticipating something major in this space? Is it reasonable to do so?
- leadingthenet 4y ago
  Disruptive technology cannot be anticipated. It's tautological.
  - Panoramix 4y ago
    It can be disproved within reason. The only new thing a magic new cable would bring to the table is more power, which is not practical to have. The big innovation I'd love to have? Having only ONE charger for all my devices, forever. That absolutely destroys any "innovation" Apple or whoever can bring to the table.
antisthenes 4y ago
Proprietary connectors are about as far from innovation as you can possibly get, unless you count patent moats and corporate grift as part of innovating.
bushbaba 4y ago
Well, innovation does shift to circumventing the regulation. Such-as removal of the charging port all together, and moving to magsafe-qi charging https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MHXH3AM/A/magsafe-charger https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MHXH3AM/A/magsafe-charger
- layer8 4y ago
  …which wastes energy and reduces battery life. Great innovation.
  - paulmd 4y ago
    it's always interesting to me that people ignore the ecological impact of cables. If you break four cables over the life of the phone from plugging/unplugging, and that results in 2 or 3 additional Amazon Prime trips to deliver your cables, how does that compare in terms of environmental impact to wasting 5 additional watts for the 1 hour a day you charge your phone? (and don't tell me everybody uses Amazon Prime day shipping... people just order new cables when they break. And sure, you can have one common pool of all your cables... sort of! except for the part where cable X or charger X doesn't fast-charge device Y, so you actually need several pools of chargers and cables...)
    - layer8 4y ago
      I personally never had a charging cable break in ~12 years, owning multiple mobile devices in parallel, so in my experience that isn’t a relevant consideration. That aside, I’m more concerned with the accelerated decrease in battery life that I experienced first-hand with MagSafe charging. I stopped using it because of that.
      - paulmd 4y ago
        I guess I did say plugging/unplugging, but certain types of cables are very prone to kinking. I've broken a number of cables if they get a loop and then you set something heavy on them, or if you lay on them in bed, etc. In the car I go through a 3.5mm cable and a usb cable every couple years as well, for largely the same reasons - they get tugged or bumped or something set on them and they break. It's especially likely with the crappy cheap cables that most people buy - I've had a lot better luck since switching to mostly braided cables, I think the sheath gives it a bit more strength. Failures due to "user error" are still failures that induce cable replacement, and a cable that you interact with less (because it's running to a fixed wireless charger stand/pad) is less likely to have user error failure modes like that. Wireless connection or wireless charging (built into the car, f.ex) removes these modes entirely - you can't break an aux cable that doesn't exist. You can't just assume "nobody ever breaks a cable" as being a realistic proposition when looking at the lifecycle of these products - I'm not sure I believe you in the first place that you've never broken a cable in 12 years but that's certainly not realistic for the population as a whole.
bloppe 4y ago
> Innovation ... does not happen by committee. If you have to make such an argument... Good luck with that. This one in particular has many existing counterexamples, including USB-C itself.
Ekaros 4y ago
Ah what lovely place our technological lives would be without standards, that are done by committees... No standardised wireless technologies like Bluetooth, WiFi, 1G, 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G... Each and every provider and technology manufacturer running their own incompatible networks... Hey, maybe throw away IP and TCP too... Let each site run on their own proprietary protocol...
- nwienert 4y ago
  Those protocols were developed without government mandate.
  - TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
    And so will USB-D
  - dfox 4y ago
    ETSI (which is the parent organization of 3GPP) is technically an independent non-profit NGO, but in reality it is part of EU bureaucracy and was chartered by EC.
joadha 4y ago
Would you mind clarifying your argument? How would you define "breakthrough innovation"? I think that's critical to my understanding of your point.
- peheje 4y ago
  Not OP. But a breakthrough innovation in charging could be a new battery-technology holding charge for much longer but required different charging specifications offered by USB-C. Such a breakthrough would hopefully get enough attention from EU to get the law updated. Or they might want the devices to still have USB-C? Who knows who's in charge then. Also missing from this discussion is the fact that even if the law is only about charging it will define he go-to data-connection for smaller devices for a long time, where an additional port will be dimensionally challenging, more costly to add as well as difficult to make water-resistant. I am sympathetic for reducing e-waste, but I'm unsure where this will lead us. Crypto-mining is also bad for the environment but might hold unknown positive possibilities if explored properly (maybe reduce bureaucracy, avoid monopolies) that could be extinguished by a premature ban. I am already paying some of the highest taxes on consumer products compared to other countries in the world, I would rather pay even more for a charger, phone etc., remember an adapter when out and about and keep the freedom of choosing which technologies to support. *Also just wanted to add that even if OP mentioned the committee, I'm unsure how much you can compare that to EU making laws enforceable in 27 countries.
Barrin92 4y ago
who needs breakthrough innovation for a charger? It's like the C++ programming language, I just want it to work everywhere. Programming languages have been designed by committee just fine.
- usr1106 4y ago
  That's a weird argument. What would you say if EU demanded us to stop programming in Python, Rust, bash and mandate that only C++ must used? No, I have no problem with the USB-C mandate. But the analogy seems weird.
  - Barrin92 4y ago
    >What would you say if EU demanded us to stop programming in Python, Rust, bash and mandate that only C++ must used? I support the idea that regulatory bodies like the EU create stronger software standards in safety critical applications in particular so that software 'engineering' actually starts to deserve that label so I have no problem with a good faith version of that take.
- midasuni 4y ago
  Ok. Go back 5 years and standardise on the ubiquitous usb-mini — usb-a solution. Why does my next phone need a charger? I’d be happy with wireless charging — especially if I have a 3.5mm socket in the phone too.
  - kaibee 4y ago
    It would have been bad to standardize on USB-B and it will be good to standardize on USB-C. These aren't mutually exclusive statements.
  - tremon 4y ago
    What do you mean with "go back 5 years"? You're aware that things were already standardized on USB Micro-B in 2009? This is just an update to the existing situation, with one slight but important difference: while under the previous MoU Apple was still allowed to buck the trend, this new legislation will force Apple to fall in line. For the rest of the industry, nothing will change. In 2009, the Commission facilitated a voluntary memorandum of understanding (MoU), signed by major producers, that aimed to guarantee interoperability between chargers and mobile phones on the EU market. The MoU resulted in a significant reduction of available charger types and a convergence to USB Micro-B connectors on the device side: while there were more than 30 proprietary chargers on the EU market in 2009, by 2012 (a year after the MoU started to apply), nine in ten new devices supported the USB Micro-B connection. (from https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2021/698819/EPRS_BRI(2021)698819_EN.pdf https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2021/6988...)
Daishiman 4y ago
> 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. You have no evidence to back this up. There's been throughout history many innovative standards that have gone through committee work, including a ton of network protocols.
whiskey14 4y ago
I guess a lot of the other replies here are saying the same thing. Innovation is first. Standardisation is second. That way, more people can make use of and innovate further on the original idea.
brodock 4y ago
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.
mitchdoogle 4y ago
One of the companies can continue to do research into new cable technologies, and when they've found something that is amazing they can present it to the committee for approval as the new standard. The committee is not there to innovate, it is there to ensure that everyone is using the same thing, which is a benefit to (most) consumers.

tankenmate 4y ago

The directive is designed to make things easier for customers and the environment, not OEMs per se (even though there will be benefits for a number of companies).

Bayart 4y ago

Standards happen by committee. They're not disruptive and that's the point.

afpx 4y ago
Standards bodies work like other technical teams. They actually produce useful output if they're fed sufficient requirements and stakeholder input.

earthboundkid 4y ago

> Innovation, particularly disruptive and / or breakthrough innovation, does not happen by committee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD#History Never make an absolutist statement. They're always wrong. :-)

ithkuil 4y ago
> They're always wrong Lol. An interesting version of the liars paradox.

10x-dev 4y ago

I'm ok if my life doesn't get disrupted every 2 years with a new type of incompatible connection between my devices. Maybe we could put all that innovation and consumer inconvenience into resolving climate change.

nickpp 4y ago
Maybe we could’ve put all that regulatory effort and politician time into resolving not even climate change, but just EU's dependence on cheap Russian fossil fuels.

notJim 4y ago

It's very strange to read this comment on article about USB, which has been developed by committee from the beginning. To me it seems quite innovative, and arguably disruptive to have a single standard for all these things. Maybe USB doesn't clear your personal bar, but then why worry about this at all?

dfox 4y ago
From time to time Intel's marketing tries to sell the idea that USB was invented by this one Intel engineer. Somewhat obviously that is not true. On the other hand if you compare USB 1.0 to 1.1 it is quite obvious that real implementation experience and throwing out artifacts of the design by committee was quite important for the success.
- warning26 4y ago
  > On the other hand if you compare USB 1.0 to 1.1 it is quite obvious that real implementation experience and throwing out artifacts of the design by committee was quite important for the success. This sounds like it has some interesting history there; do you have any recommended sources to read about the transition between USB 1.0 and 1.1?
- ghaff 4y ago
  I was going to disagree as I used to know one the standards people at Intel quite well (who always regretted that USB was orientation specific)--and I didn't remember anything like that. But you're right. Intel was pushing Ajay Bhatt was one of the people Intel highlighted as a face behind Intel's technology. (Although the campaign wasn't specific to USB.) https://www.oregonlive.com/business/2009/05/intel_ad_campaign_remakes_rese.html https://www.oregonlive.com/business/2009/05/intel_ad_campaig...
- bsder 4y ago
  > Somewhat obviously that is not true. Especially since I know that several people at Digital Equipment Corporation had to do the signal integrity analysis for Intel for the original USB standard.
4y ago

akira2501 4y ago

> Innovation, particularly disruptive and / or breakthrough innovation We are talking about power cables here. Are you anticipating something major in this space? Is it reasonable to do so?

leadingthenet 4y ago
Disruptive technology cannot be anticipated. It's tautological.
- Panoramix 4y ago
  It can be disproved within reason. The only new thing a magic new cable would bring to the table is more power, which is not practical to have. The big innovation I'd love to have? Having only ONE charger for all my devices, forever. That absolutely destroys any "innovation" Apple or whoever can bring to the table.

antisthenes 4y ago

Proprietary connectors are about as far from innovation as you can possibly get, unless you count patent moats and corporate grift as part of innovating.

bushbaba 4y ago

Well, innovation does shift to circumventing the regulation. Such-as removal of the charging port all together, and moving to magsafe-qi charging https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MHXH3AM/A/magsafe-charger https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MHXH3AM/A/magsafe-charger

layer8 4y ago
…which wastes energy and reduces battery life. Great innovation.
- paulmd 4y ago
  it's always interesting to me that people ignore the ecological impact of cables. If you break four cables over the life of the phone from plugging/unplugging, and that results in 2 or 3 additional Amazon Prime trips to deliver your cables, how does that compare in terms of environmental impact to wasting 5 additional watts for the 1 hour a day you charge your phone? (and don't tell me everybody uses Amazon Prime day shipping... people just order new cables when they break. And sure, you can have one common pool of all your cables... sort of! except for the part where cable X or charger X doesn't fast-charge device Y, so you actually need several pools of chargers and cables...)
  - layer8 4y ago
    I personally never had a charging cable break in ~12 years, owning multiple mobile devices in parallel, so in my experience that isn’t a relevant consideration. That aside, I’m more concerned with the accelerated decrease in battery life that I experienced first-hand with MagSafe charging. I stopped using it because of that.
    - paulmd 4y ago
      I guess I did say plugging/unplugging, but certain types of cables are very prone to kinking. I've broken a number of cables if they get a loop and then you set something heavy on them, or if you lay on them in bed, etc. In the car I go through a 3.5mm cable and a usb cable every couple years as well, for largely the same reasons - they get tugged or bumped or something set on them and they break. It's especially likely with the crappy cheap cables that most people buy - I've had a lot better luck since switching to mostly braided cables, I think the sheath gives it a bit more strength. Failures due to "user error" are still failures that induce cable replacement, and a cable that you interact with less (because it's running to a fixed wireless charger stand/pad) is less likely to have user error failure modes like that. Wireless connection or wireless charging (built into the car, f.ex) removes these modes entirely - you can't break an aux cable that doesn't exist. You can't just assume "nobody ever breaks a cable" as being a realistic proposition when looking at the lifecycle of these products - I'm not sure I believe you in the first place that you've never broken a cable in 12 years but that's certainly not realistic for the population as a whole.

bloppe 4y ago

> Innovation ... does not happen by committee. If you have to make such an argument... Good luck with that. This one in particular has many existing counterexamples, including USB-C itself.

Ekaros 4y ago

Ah what lovely place our technological lives would be without standards, that are done by committees... No standardised wireless technologies like Bluetooth, WiFi, 1G, 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G... Each and every provider and technology manufacturer running their own incompatible networks... Hey, maybe throw away IP and TCP too... Let each site run on their own proprietary protocol...

nwienert 4y ago
Those protocols were developed without government mandate.
- TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
  And so will USB-D
- dfox 4y ago
  ETSI (which is the parent organization of 3GPP) is technically an independent non-profit NGO, but in reality it is part of EU bureaucracy and was chartered by EC.

joadha 4y ago

Would you mind clarifying your argument? How would you define "breakthrough innovation"? I think that's critical to my understanding of your point.

peheje 4y ago
Not OP. But a breakthrough innovation in charging could be a new battery-technology holding charge for much longer but required different charging specifications offered by USB-C. Such a breakthrough would hopefully get enough attention from EU to get the law updated. Or they might want the devices to still have USB-C? Who knows who's in charge then. Also missing from this discussion is the fact that even if the law is only about charging it will define he go-to data-connection for smaller devices for a long time, where an additional port will be dimensionally challenging, more costly to add as well as difficult to make water-resistant. I am sympathetic for reducing e-waste, but I'm unsure where this will lead us. Crypto-mining is also bad for the environment but might hold unknown positive possibilities if explored properly (maybe reduce bureaucracy, avoid monopolies) that could be extinguished by a premature ban. I am already paying some of the highest taxes on consumer products compared to other countries in the world, I would rather pay even more for a charger, phone etc., remember an adapter when out and about and keep the freedom of choosing which technologies to support. *Also just wanted to add that even if OP mentioned the committee, I'm unsure how much you can compare that to EU making laws enforceable in 27 countries.

Barrin92 4y ago

who needs breakthrough innovation for a charger? It's like the C++ programming language, I just want it to work everywhere. Programming languages have been designed by committee just fine.

usr1106 4y ago
That's a weird argument. What would you say if EU demanded us to stop programming in Python, Rust, bash and mandate that only C++ must used? No, I have no problem with the USB-C mandate. But the analogy seems weird.
- Barrin92 4y ago
  >What would you say if EU demanded us to stop programming in Python, Rust, bash and mandate that only C++ must used? I support the idea that regulatory bodies like the EU create stronger software standards in safety critical applications in particular so that software 'engineering' actually starts to deserve that label so I have no problem with a good faith version of that take.
midasuni 4y ago
Ok. Go back 5 years and standardise on the ubiquitous usb-mini — usb-a solution. Why does my next phone need a charger? I’d be happy with wireless charging — especially if I have a 3.5mm socket in the phone too.
- kaibee 4y ago
  It would have been bad to standardize on USB-B and it will be good to standardize on USB-C. These aren't mutually exclusive statements.
- tremon 4y ago
  What do you mean with "go back 5 years"? You're aware that things were already standardized on USB Micro-B in 2009? This is just an update to the existing situation, with one slight but important difference: while under the previous MoU Apple was still allowed to buck the trend, this new legislation will force Apple to fall in line. For the rest of the industry, nothing will change. In 2009, the Commission facilitated a voluntary memorandum of understanding (MoU), signed by major producers, that aimed to guarantee interoperability between chargers and mobile phones on the EU market. The MoU resulted in a significant reduction of available charger types and a convergence to USB Micro-B connectors on the device side: while there were more than 30 proprietary chargers on the EU market in 2009, by 2012 (a year after the MoU started to apply), nine in ten new devices supported the USB Micro-B connection. (from https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2021/698819/EPRS_BRI(2021)698819_EN.pdf https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2021/6988...)

Daishiman 4y ago

> 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. You have no evidence to back this up. There's been throughout history many innovative standards that have gone through committee work, including a ton of network protocols.

whiskey14 4y ago

I guess a lot of the other replies here are saying the same thing. Innovation is first. Standardisation is second. That way, more people can make use of and innovate further on the original idea.

brodock 4y ago

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.

mitchdoogle 4y ago

One of the companies can continue to do research into new cable technologies, and when they've found something that is amazing they can present it to the committee for approval as the new standard. The committee is not there to innovate, it is there to ensure that everyone is using the same thing, which is a benefit to (most) consumers.