News written by Petteri Pyyny (October, 2022)

For about an hour now, since 07:00 UTC, the world's largest instant messaging platform WhatsApp has been completely down.

People have panicked, uninstalled/reinstalled WhatsApp on their phones and even blamed their service providers for the situation. But no, it is down to WhatsApp itself, which simply cannot be accessed right now.

As of now, the outage has been on-going for more than an hour, marking this one of the longest downtimes for WhatsApp in quite some time now.

In a landmark decision that has been in works for more than a decade, European parliament almost unanimously decided to make USB-C mandatory in all portable electronics.

By the end of 2024 all new phones, digital cameras, headphones, tablets and various other portable devices sold within the European Union must have a USB-C charging port. The new legislation doesn't allow manufacturers to circumvent the requirement with adapters or anything like that.

Interestingly, the legislation also makes USB PD quick charging mandatory for mobile phones, tablets and other "medium-sized" devices. Manufacturers are required to support at least 30W quick charging USB PD standard by end of 2024.

The requirement for 30W+ quick charging is a big deal, considering how some manufacturers don't provide any quick charging for their budget phones - and some expensive models only support 18W quick charging.

Additionally, all laptops sold in Europe must switch to USB-C charging by spring 2026. Only exception to this requirement are the high-end laptops that draw more than 100W power when operating at full power. For those, manufacturers can continue to use their non-standard charging ports.