Universal Charger for your Mobile by 2012
Written on Thursday, February 19, 2009
As a lot of you probably know, the Mobile World Congress is currently being held in Barcelona. There is a lot going on that looks to shape the future of mobile, and one such piece of news is certainly this one.
It looks like after years and years of constantly finding myself without a charger, (I often forget to charge my mobile, and always remember just after the battery has run out!), the solution to all my problems has appeared in the horizon.Long gone will be the days when you needed a charger from a particular brand, because a new initiative promises to bring a 'Universal Charging Solution' to us, within 3 years. From the article:
The world's top five mobile handset manufacturers are among a group of 17 major industry firms to have pledged their support for development of a mobile phone charger that will work with the majority of new handsets by 2012. The new 'Universal Charging Solution' (UCS) initiative, announced by the GSMA yesterday, aims to make life easier for consumers by providing a 'one-size-fits-all' charger. The GSMA claims it could potentially lead to 50 percent less chargers being manufactured each year. The new charger is also targeting a 50 percent reduction in standby energy consumption and claims to be three times more energy efficient than some current chargers. The UCS uses a Micro-USB as a common universal charging interface.
Nokia, Samsung, LG, Motorola and Sony Ericsson are involved in the project from launch, supported by mobile operators 3 Group, AT&T, KTF, mobilkom austria, Orange, Telecom Italia, Telefonica, Telenor, Telstra, T-Mobile and Vodafone. Mobile chip giant Qualcomm is also involved. Both 3 Group and Telefonica are aiming to have 75 percent of their handset portfolios UCS compliant by 2012, while Orange said it is looking at UCS accounting for two thirds of sales.
There are plenty of benefits from such a move, and to be honest it was about time (though I still have some doubts about if and when this will reach the market). Convenience aside, the biggest benefit, however, is the one for the environment. 50% less chargers is actually a pretty huge reduction, and as if that weren't enough, the new charger also claims to be much more efficient in energy consumption.
With mobile phones becoming ever more important and all the more ubiquitous in our daily lives, the idea of having ONE (type of) charger forall our devices sounds great and I'm sure will come as a big convenience.
I will post more interesting stuff from the MWC, as there's plenty there, so stay tuned..
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At last! :)
Maybe all these mobile giants will decide to really cooperate and not only participate in forums and consortium. Good news about the UCS but after almost 30 years we ll succeed the obvious. Good for us.