universal connector

The Grouse

Universal Phone Charger -- So What?

The Grouse thinks the world-saving new standard isn't so hot

In February, seventeen of the world's biggest, big-boy cell phone manufacturers got their Voltron on, banding together under the flag of the GSMA (Groupe Speciale Mobile Association) to promise universal handset jack-ability by 2012. Ever since then, I've read countless articles by tech writers praising this announcement and heralding it as the long-overdue end to that proverbial bottom drawer full of old, outdated chargers we all supposedly keep. But I'm not drinking the GSMA's Kool-Aid.

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Charging Ahead

Cell phones are moving toward a single universal charger standard. What's next?

We've all got the drawer. It has an indiscriminate collection of electronic connections, cords, and chargers for devices we haven't used in a decade and couldn't give away on eBay for free. But we guard that drawer with Obamian hope that the next purchase might actually require a serial port connection or that dot-matrix printers might hold the key to cold fusion. We wait for just one occasion to justify our persistence and silence throughout decades of shrieks from our significant others. It's likely that within that drawer are somewhere between six and ten cell phone chargers, one perhaps still connected through its one-of-a-kind connection to that swanky new flip phone you bought in 1999. We understand. We too have such a drawer, or cabinet or garage. But together, today, it's time to let go, just a little bit.

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