When I was buying digital camera, I chose Canon over Sony and Olympus because of standard USB cable and SD card versus Memory Stick and XD. I don’t want to be tied to one manufacturer and its “certified” goods. No way.

I bought my wife Nokia but not SonyEricsson for the same reasons. No proprietary memory cards, no proprietary cables, no proprietary headphones. Get lost with them.

No damn iPhone with all that proprietary stuff. No Sony PRS.

I bought mp3-player working on AAA battery and SD card – and again to be not tied to proprietary cable and battery. When AAA runs off – I can buy another one on every corner, I can put in my pocket dozen of AAAs. The same for memory cards. I can transfer music to my player anywhere where I have card-reader, I don’t have to be tied to one proprietary cable.

And what innovation does slow or stop AA and AAA batteries? USB, ISA, PCI, ATX, SATA, GSM, CD? Let’s them compete by features and price – not by damn proprietary ties!

You may believe in Sony and Apple, but I think that better believe in wide open standards.

I’m no apologist for faceless bureaucracy, but here in the UK and EU, most regulation of this kind over the last few years has been reasonably sensible, with safety foremost in mind. A few statutory warning labels and standardised connectors aren’t going to bring the average multi-national corporation to its knees, or infringe anyone’s personal liberties. The EU’s recent edict on phone chargers is sensible and long overdue, and in fact should have been statutory from the outset. I don’t much trust politicians, but I trust commercial marketing even less.

PS – I drive a smaller lighter vehicle – best car I’ve ever had. It’s not in the least bit dangerous – but local rednecks in their 4×4s certainly are.

No goverment regulation please. Government interferes and slows down or stops innovation. This is a voluntary standard by the industry. Not as quickly as if some government type mandated it 10 -15 years ago, but then we would be stuck with technology from 10 – 15 years ago not Micro USB which is 21st century tech.

Besides, I don’t want the same people who force car manufacturers to make vehicles that are smaller, lighter and more dangerous (to save fuel) to issue mobile phone charger edicts or much else for that matter.

Overkill? Think about it – how many chargers and low-voltage adapters does your home have? Are they clearly marked so that a charger/adapter can’t be used with the wrong device? I doubt it. And we all hate to throw them out. For those of us who understand the technology, proper use and re-use is simple – but not everyone does. Most people don’t even seem to know that most adapters/chargers still consume power when they’re not in use unless they’re actually unplugged.

Real life case – I recently helped out an elderly lady who had become confused between low voltage adapters. Overheating had melted a power socket and blown a breaker – she was very lucky not to have had a house fire.

In fact why adapters at all? The number of low-voltage items in the average household has been increasing for years – everything from PC peripherals to reading lamps, not to mention all those things that need recharging. I have about 30 separate low-voltage items in my house and I’m no gadget nerd. So why can’t we simply have standardised low-voltage outlets on the walls? It’s not rocket science.

I’m not really for the goverment mandating it because I don’t like the idea of any government getting so involved with every aspect of capitalism. But I would like the FCC to call a meeting and hopefully get all to agree. Maybe a few perks might do the trick.

http://www.which.co.uk/news/2009/02/mobile-phone-chargers-to-be-standardised-168839.jsp

The first products based on the new standard will be on the market in 2010

-/Mic