There Oughta Be a Standard: Laptop Power Supplies

Esther Schindler writes "Every mobile device you own has its own power supply and its own proprietary plug. There oughta be a better way, says Alfred Poor. Fortunately, he reports, the IEEE is coming to the rescue. "Their Universal Power Adapter for Mobile Devices (UPAMD) Working Group is developing a new standard that will not just address the needs of laptops and tablets, but will be intended to work with just about any electronics device that required between 10 and 240 watts of power," Poor writes. It's about darned time." If there's one thing I wish for all laptop power supplies, it's that they would license from Apple (or work around, patent-wise) the magnet attachment system that makes cable-tripping far less dangerous to man or beast, compared to a few years ago.

Mod summary up!

[bennomatic]

My wife used to knock over her iBook all the time. When we got a dog, it fell off the coffee table twice as often. We replaced it with a MacBook some time back, and it's only hit the ground once in like five years. With a kid having been added to the mix since then, that number would have been a lot worse without the magnetic plug.

Of course, the kid has come pretty close to doing some other things. He went through a phase of being fascinated by watching water pour over different things.

Re:Lower efficiency

[Arlet]

I could imagine that efficiency will improve. Right now, a laptop manufacturer that includes their own power brick has not much incentive to make it really efficient. It's easier just to make a bigger one with a cheaper design.

With a standard connector, there will be 3rd party vendors that offer standard bricks, and some vendors will aim for the highest efficiency as a selling point.

Re:Mod summary up!

[Maximum Prophet]

Apple's patent is for that *On a Computer*

Have them make is symetrical

[Maximum Prophet]

Make it symmetrical, and make them test it with a sight impaired person. USB dropped the ball on this big-time.