Micro-USB Cellphone Charger Becomes EU Standard 302
An anonymous reader writes "The European Commission has put into effect a June 2009 agreement stating that major cellphone manufacturers should standardize their charging/data connection ports to the popular Micro-USB format. CEN-CENELEC and ETSI provided the standards by which these 14 companies will abide to make cell phone recharging and data transfer easy." Apple may even bring the next-gen iPad along for the ride.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:US (Score:5, Funny)
If they did this in the US, you would hear screaming about how it's another example of government's heavy thumb on the "free market" and comparisons to Stalin, Pol Pot and Kim Jong Il. Fox and Drudge would say Obama was "taking over the cell phone industry" and "shoving" "new regulations" down our "throats".
I don't think it's safe to try to do this sort of standardization here in the US. We've got enough trouble. It might be the last straw that sets off violent revolt. "They took our cell phone adapters! Those TYRANTS!"
What this means in practice... (Score:4, Funny)
An EU standard means the following in practice:
The Germans will complain that everyone else does it inefficiently.
The Austrians will tell the Germans how to do it.
The Spanish will promise to do it tomorrow.
The Greeks will fake the documentation saying they've done it.
The Dutch will give parents and same-sex partners time off to do it.
The Czechs will charge foreigners extra for it.
Nobody will have any idea what the Portuguese are doing about it.
The Luxembourgers will interview everyone else on the radio about it.
The French will block the roads protesting about it.
The Danes will claim to have done it a thousand years ago.
The Swedes will only do it for six months a year.
The Polish will blame the Romanians and Hungarians for not doing it, or doing it too much, or not quite right.
The Maltese will earn a medal for it.
The Irish will invest their whole economy in it.
The Scottish will demand a subsidy to do it.
The Welsh won't do it until it's translated into a language that only people in Herefordshire and Shropshire actually use.
The English will do it immediately but moan about it forever after.
Turkey will pass a law making it illegal to do it in a headdress. The rest of the EU still won't let them join their club.