New USB Type-C Design Finalized
Often it’s the little things that can have a huge impact on quality of life. Back in the 1990s when engineers were developing the Universal Serial Bus (USB) they may not have considered one tiny detail as important – the connector has a right-side up. How could they foresee the countless times an innocent computer user would attempt to connect their peripheral and, unable to get the connector to slide into the port, flip it around several times. Perhaps they would need to bend over, crane around to the back of their computer, or even kneel on the floor, to see which way the connector needs to go. How many points of systolic blood pressure have such frustrations caused?
Now, 18 years after the release of USB, the USB Implementers Forum and a collaboration of Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Microsoft, Renesas, STMicroelectronics and Texas Instruments have announced the final design of the next generation USB – the USB Type-C.
The primary feature of the Type-C is that it is reversible. You can plug it in either way – thank Thor, Zeus, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
The connector is also smaller than the current USB, closer in size to the mini-USB. The 3.1 standard promises 10 gb/second transfer rates. This is another advantage of the Type-C – it can replace both the USB an the USB mini, allowing for one connector for every device. That is something we can’t blame the engineers in the 1990s for – the proliferation of smart phones, digital cameras, and other small computer devices. These devices are too small for a standard USB connector, requiring the mini.
Sure, it will be a pain to migrate over to a new standard that is not backward compatible, but this one is worth it. This can be a true universal connector – the one connector to rule them all. The reversibility alone is worth the switch. Also, I’m sure adapters will be available for existing peripherals.
The change is also coming shortly after Apple made it’s move to the new lightening connector, which is both small and reversible. Hopefully these new standards will last for at least a couple of decades.
Nice! I have to go under my desk every time I use my usb 3.0. I have a older case that does not have Front usb 3.0, and it is dark, so i need a flash light! Man it is a pain. Can’t wait to have a motherboard with those!
There’s is also the fact that they are small, USB port can sometime limit the thickness of laptops, with this we companies will be able to shave couple of milimeters off current ultrabook! I can’t wait to get laptop cuts!
Switching standards can be hard, but I think that in some cases, it is worth it. On fact pc motherboards have for long time before, carry over, older ports ( like the old pci) and tech that should have been scraped long time before. Those port are small, so they can fit along side standard usb at first or they just have to give free USB to USB-C adapters in the box, so you can still use you older devices with it. Just do it like a band aid!
Oh goodie, yet another version of a plug with the same 4 bits of wire. I’ve already got 4 different ‘standard’ versions on my desk plus at least 2..3 propitiatory versions… which all just have the same 4 damn bits of wire.
If it’s usb-3.x there are actually more than 4 wires, but I do get your point.
usb 3 doesn’t use a 4 pin connector, it moved up to an 8 pin connector….
So do you expect the cords you currently own to magically improve the transfer rate?.. Obviously as technology advances, so will applicable accessories.
This would be faster than your current ‘plugs’ and reversible… I’d have no problem ditching my abundance of crappy USB cables for something universal and fast. Besides, it’ll take quite some time before this is even considered the norm–that is if it takes off anytime soon.
Ha ha:
propitiatory! Was deliberate or Freudian?
Now we just have to convince Apple to conform to the standard.
good luck with your projects
Ahh, haha, good lols.
[wipes tear from eye]
Good luck with that. Apple wants a proprietary for an audio connection…LoL
Apple’s thunderbolt has been 10Gb/s since its comception. Now comes the battle, 20Gb/s thunderbolt asap, all “new” devices obsolete in a couple of months etc..
Is this competition healthy, is it directing toward progress or are they just toying with us?
– Can’t compare a proprietary device (not usable but by a single company) with a standardized one (that anybody is using).
– Don’t confuse a plug design standard and the protocol layer it use. The same USB plug has carried USB 1.x and 2.x protocols evolution, the same way this plug will carry 3.1 and following (until advance in transmissions or usages will trigger the need for another connector type).
Or are we allowing ourselves to be toyed with …
@Thomas K, Thunderbolt was developed by Apple and Intel and the rights are actually owned and licensed by Intel. I was recently building a new PC and was considering getting a motherboard that had a Thunderbolt connector. So it can be used by other companies, if they chose to do so.
. . . after Apple made *ITS move to the new *Lightning . . .
Reversibility worth all the hassle of converting to still another connector, don’t think so
If this is the kind of thing you think has “a huge impact on quality of life” then you really have a pretty good life. Contrast that with people who live in places where clean drinking water would have “a huge impact on quality of life”. Appreciate it while you can.
How about a triangle a square a circle a rectangle and any other junior school shape for our reversible connectors. A large and a small with a step up down connector.
Common standard as the goal. True universal hard connections. In the most basic of shapes with bi lateral symmetry.
There’s only one thing more annoying than a connector I can’t reverse and that’s connector designs that change for no good reason, rendering all my adapters and devices obsolete. This will be connector design number 4 for USB. Standard, Mini, Micro and now Type-C and that is ignoring other USB form factors that were never essential like the printer USB connectors that required a unique cable for no good reason.
How do you know there was no good reason to change the form factor? Sometimes there are reasons. Though rarely. And it hardly renders it obsolete. You can buy adapters for every single one of those that you listed to convert them to every other single USB type for a couple of bucks online. And if enough developers adapt and convert to it, which they will eventually then we will finally have a usb that goes into the socket either way. Which would be great.
It is spelled Lightning. NOT Lightening.
Thanks.
There is no reason why this could not be also made in a configuration where it is the standard large USB connection on one end and the smaller C connector on the other, similar to Apple’s Lightning connector, which is already reversible.
This would provide the necessary backwards compatibility until people get more fully migrated.
Looks like you meant Micro, not mini.
Getting pretty good at feeling up or down, on the mini USB for my android based cell phones.
Europe a couple of years ago required all cell phone makers to standardize on the USB Micro connector, to eliminate the need for a new charger every time you bought a new phone. Which has reduced the number of chargers being trashed every year, which reduces pollution.
Now, of course, that standard is ‘obsolete’.
The micro USB wont become obsolete, it will just slowly fad away. Its much better to have the odd new standard that is changed for logical advancement reasons rather than having dozens of different proprietary ones all over the place.
This new standard USB type C, is brilliant, can’t fault it. Fixes all issues including making all laptop proprietary power supplies obsolete, that’s a big plus. Why did it take so long to get here.
Could this be the last great standard before everything goes wireless?