http://arstechnica.com/telecom/news/...rger-in-eu.ars

I'm glad to see it.

We are pretty much there already. The last 4 phones I have had have had micro-usb chargers.

And apparently your next 4 are going to have micro-usb.

I simply hate the idea...
1) Charging via USB will probably turn into "we provide you with a cable to use you computer" a la Apple, no wall plug... you want it, you buy it for extra 30$ (or 30€)
2) The same USB port will be used to charge and to transfer data, the problem I see is that batteries will be more stressed... I don't trickle charge a lithium battery, my N800 is 2 years old and the battery has the same capacity as its first day of life, while I can't say the same for my smartphone which charges every time i connect it to the PC (and it is six month younger than my tablet...)
3) Some devices need more current than others, so to make each and every charger work with each and every device it will be necessary to fix a minimum current which will be higher than the higher current needed by those devices. Switching regulators work at their best when the load current is precisely the erogated one, so loss of efficiency could be there too...

They think that having a standard way of charging devices will result in less e-waste, I say that given the number of devices (and consequently the number of chargers) and the normal lifespan of a charger (given it is no-user serviceable) nothing will change...
It would have been a smarter move to push recycling and creating collecting point for specific appliances...

You are a pessimist
Here some advantages:

• Forgot your charger on a trip? Running low on batteries? Chances that someone else has a charger that you can use raise to 99.9%
• Need multiple chargers (home, work)? Whatever charger you find, it will be ok.
• Chances increase that other gadget makers will adapt to such a standard (digital cameras, USB disks, wireless mice, bluetooth headsets etc.)
• (Everybody using the same voltage to charge might reduce the number of different battery types)

Exactly, but this is an advantage ! Since the USB standard defines the exact voltages and currents, it's the *chargers* (=devices) who must expect those currents. That's why the choice is that important to manufacturers (the USB standard was already extended to accomodate for larger currents on the bus needed for device charging).

A couple of EE notes on this. The actual 'charger' is already in the phone - the current 'brick' is just a (pretty dumb) current limited power supply most of the time. USB is pretty smart and exact with regard to power specs (and reporting it's abilities), so it depends entirely on the charger whether how it will charge (or not).

FYI, the Openmoko wiki has a lot of information on USB charging. I wish we had that level of documentation and detail here...

How about $1.90 instead of $30? Standardizing makes getting these things cheaper.

@ Twaelti: pessimist or realist?
@ Attila77: to have an entire computer on just to charge a cell phone... how convenient and environmentally friendly I usually charge my devices at night when I sleep, there's no way I'm leaving my pc on to do that! And the USB standard really applies only to computers, because the only thing I've seen until now on so called USB-wall plugs is the connector (and believe me, I opened many of them...)
@ GeraldKo: sure, too bad that thing is not going to work for many power-hungry devices (for example the NITs charger is rated 890mA, to charge the battery while powering them) or "magic" devices from a known company who I believe sells some kind of fruit that requires precise differential voltage on signal pins to start charging (and many of the cheap USB chargers don't even connect D+ and D- ).
I have this http://www.boxwave.com/products/bund...phone_2661.htm but you need this http://www.boxwave.com/products/ipho...phone_2661.htm to charge this crap http://www.apple.com/ipodtouch/... 24.40$ for nothing...

Yes, maybe I am a pessimist, still I think that the main goal of a company is profit and I can't believe that in the future this will change...

Why on Earth would you need a computer ? We're talking about USB power outputting wall-warts, extenders and bricks here (the ability to plug into computers and HUBs is a bonus). As there would be one unified standard, the extra few cents of extra electronics cost would be more than offset with the orders of magnitude more units that would be produced (also, being ubiquitous would mean that basically all DC equipment that fits in a few watts would sooner or later end up using it).

Having ONE powered hub style extender is far-far better (even ecologically) than a 220/110 V extender that has a bunch of bricks in it. For example at home I now have a brick-heap by the wall. WRT54GS brick, NSLU2 brick, ADSL modem brick, Nokia charger brick, ground line phone brick, AA battery brick charger... Plus the tetris challenge to fit the above mentioned bricks into extenders... Ugh.