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UN approves universal phone charger

25 October 2009 18:29 by Andre "DVDBack23" Yoskowitz | 5 comments

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a body of the United Nations (UN), has approved a universal mobile phone charger that will work with all future handsets.

The body says that over 51,000 tons of redundant chargers are used or thrown out each year and that the new energy-efficient chargers will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 13.6 million tons, each year.

Because many companies such as LG and Samsung use proprietary chargers, users throw out their chargers when they switch phones, leading to waste. The new universal chargers would allow users to keep just one charger for years at a time, even if they choose to upgrade their handsets.

"This is a significant step in reducing the environmental impact of mobile charging," added Malcolm Johnson, director of ITU's Telecommunication Standardisation Bureau. "Universal chargers are a common-sense solution that I look forward to seeing in other areas."

The new charger will be micro-USB, used today in most Motorola and HTC handsets. The technology is the same that is used by most digital cameras.

Unfortunately manufacturers have to volunteer to accept the new charger, and it is likely many will not given the amount of money they make off selling overpriced proprietary chargers.

Permalink to this article | Topic: Phones

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Discuss this article!
KillerBug (Senior Member) 25 October 2009 23:24
It would be nice if they all went to micro-usb, no more $30 car chargers or $50 usb data cables! [ + quote]
Pop_Smith (Senior Member) 26 October 2009 1:11
*Originally posted by KillerBug:* It would be nice if they all went to micro-usb, no more $30 car chargers or $50 usb data cables! I agree 100%. My Voyager came with one charger and it's plug is proprietary. If something happens to it, or I want another one for when I go out of town, LG wants $30 for one. The USB cable for it is $40, luckily I don't need it. It would be nice if the UN could agree to make this an international law so that all members of the UN would abide by it. EDITED by Pop_Smith: I don't make sense when I'm tired. O.o [ + quote] This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 26 October 2009 1:12
KillerBug (Senior Member) 26 October 2009 5:50
*Quote:* *Originally posted by KillerBug:* It would be nice if they all went to micro-usb, no more $30 car chargers or $50 usb data cables! I agree 100%. My Voyager came with one charger and it's plug is proprietary. If something happens to it, or I want another one for when I go out of town, LG wants $30 for one. The USB cable for it is $40, luckily I don't need it. It would be nice if the UN could agree to make this an international law so that all members of the UN would abide by it. EDITED by Pop_Smith: I don't make sense when I'm tired. O.o The UN has no power. They can't even do government releated things, let alone capitalism related stuff. USBIF has more power over the development of cell phones than the UN does...and the Palm Pre showed us that USBIF has little to no power at all. [ + quote]
bam431 (Junior Member) 26 October 2009 16:09
I don't throw mine out i have a box in the closet filled with about 50 different chargers i don't use [ + quote]
eLeCTR0n (Member) 30 October 2009 17:44
this is an awesome idea. but why would the greedy companies ever sign up for such a thing when they can keep overcharging for proprietary chargers? hell will freeze before Apple adopts something like this. if it doesn't have a big fruit logo on it, they would use all their engineering skills to make sure it wouldn't be compatible with their devices. [ + quote]