
USB 3.0 Promoter Group Announces USB Type-C Connector Ready for Production [pdf] - Deinos
http://www.usb.org/press/USB_Type-C_Specification_Announcement_Final.pdf
======
deckiedan
I'm not an apple fanboy - but I do really like their magsafe & iPad mini
connectors (whatever those are called officially). One thing I really like is
the lack of "sticky-out-bit" in the middle of the connector, which all USB
sockets seem to have, and which always feels kind of unstable or weak to me.

Is there a reason why all USB sockets - including these new diagrams - have a
feeble looking centre part rather than it being part of the outer ring?

~~~
izacus
Hmm, while Lightning connector is rather nice, I don't like MagSafe 2 at
all... it keeps falling out from the connection, especially if I use the
laptop on a bed or similar surface.

The original MagSafe and the connector on my previous Dell M1330 were
significantly more reliable while still providing enough protection.

~~~
X-Istence
MagSafe 2 works without issues for me, and is plenty strong. There should be
no way that it is "falling" out!

~~~
twoodfin
The issue I've had with MagSafe2 is that it's very sensitive to vertical
force: If there is any tension at all on the cable and I rotate my rMBP more
than 15 degrees or so around the axis between my head and the screen (say,
while using it on the couch), the connector disengages. Not so if it's rotated
around the vertical axis. It's not clear to me that there's any safety or
durability justification for this difference, only that they wanted a
connector that was much thinner along one dimension than the other.

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tekacs
The USB Power Delivery spec is pretty interesting too - up to 100W @ 20V over
USB (presumably with modified cabling, too :P)

[http://www.extremetech.com/computing/172113-usb-power-
delive...](http://www.extremetech.com/computing/172113-usb-power-delivery-
spec-demoed-for-the-first-time-can-provide-up-to-100w-and-usb-3-0-over-a-
single-cable)

(a link from a link on this comments page)

~~~
melling
Powering an external monitor from a laptop is appealing. One cord to the wall.

Even cooler, would be driving an external monitor from a smartphone.

~~~
unwiredben
You've got it backwards... powering your laptop from the monitor is the killer
app, meaning an end to proprietary laptop power supplies.

~~~
chipotle_coyote
Well, you've got one out of two already. :) Apple laptops can be powered by
Apple external monitors.

It'd be nice to have a more "universal" standard -- where I'm sitting at work
right now I see one coworker with a ThinkPad plugged into an Apple monitor,
and another with a MacBook Air plugged into a Samsung monitor, and that means
both of them need one more outlet than I do. But that's a meeting of the
brands I wouldn't hold my breath for.

~~~
pilif
_> Well, you've got one out of two already. :) Apple laptops can be powered by
Apple external monitors._

Well. Kinda. You still have to plug in two cables. This would allow to go down
to one single cable powering the laptop and sending signals to the screen.

Though, honestly, I don't trust USB to be a good protocol for transmitting a
high bandwidth and very lie latency signal with it's inherently polling
architecture.

~~~
unwiredben
Isn't that the whole point of USB's isochronous transfer mode, where a
peripheral schedules part of the total USB bandwidth budget for a regular
transfer of data? USB 3.1's got similar bandwidth to Thunderbolt and HDMI 1.3,
so that could work for many video applications, although not for uncompressed
4K/60Hz, although VESA Display Stream Compression could allow it to work.

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mankyd
> Reversible plug orientation and cable direction

That's all I needed to read.

~~~
Lifescape
Now you only have to plug it in one time instead of three!

~~~
boyaka
[http://cdn.thedroidguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/USB-
pl...](http://cdn.thedroidguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/USB-plug-in-
problems.jpg)

Source article actually relevant to topic:
[http://thedroidguy.com/2014/04/next-generation-usb-type-c-
ca...](http://thedroidguy.com/2014/04/next-generation-usb-type-c-cable-to-
come-in-july-solves-usb-wrong-insertion-problems-88874)

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bjackman
Sounds great! For anyone not sure of the context, right now Type-A is the
"host" end and type-B is the "device" end. However since OTG was introduced
that correlation isn't concreted and can reverse during the connection. I
might have misunderstood but it sounds like Type-C will be a symmetrical
affair (the cable will be reversible). I guess this opens the door for totally
new use cases for USB? With extensions to the OTG system we could be
connecting two hosts for e.g. transferring files between laptops. Again I
could be wrong about that.

Also 100W power is great - The power delivery capability of current USB is
really limiting.

And reversible cable orientation? We are entering a glorious new era.

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asadotzler
Where are the photos of the connector?

~~~
coldpie
Some different connector configurations at the Ars article:

[http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/08/small-reversible-
usb-...](http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/08/small-reversible-usb-type-c-
connector-finalized/)

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ksec
Um.. wouldn't the small piece in the computer's end break easily since it is
so thin.. and small.

And how does it delivery 100W of power with cable that thin?

~~~
seanp2k2
I'm guessing it does 100w only at 20v, which is 5A, which, with proper
engineering, could be carried over 22-24 AWG wire according to
[https://www.eol.ucar.edu/rtf/facilities/isff/LOCAL_access_on...](https://www.eol.ucar.edu/rtf/facilities/isff/LOCAL_access_only/Wire_Size.htm)

For an example of how thick 24AWG wire is (22 is thicker), your standard CAT5E
wire is 8 strands of 24AWG, so with the current-standard USB wiring of VCC (5v
DC pos), Data (neg), Data (pos), GND (5v DC neg), it'd be ~half as thick as
CatV (but would probably have different shielding). However, according to
[http://pinoutsguide.com/Slots/usb_3_0_connector_pinout.shtml](http://pinoutsguide.com/Slots/usb_3_0_connector_pinout.shtml)
, the powered USB 3.0 connector has 11 pins, which would be ~lamp cord
thickness, or probably comparable to those ~10ft USB printer cables.

Consider how thick overhead power lines are and how much power they carry in
watts, and how thick + long your vacuum cleaner cord is with how much that
carries (a Dyson DC33 takes 1190 watts):
[http://www.cockeyed.com/science/power_use_database/dyson_vac...](http://www.cockeyed.com/science/power_use_database/dyson_vacuum_cleaner.html)

Here is a good primer on wire capacity and how it relates to volts, amps,
watts, and wire diameter:
[http://www.rowand.net/Shop/Tech/WireCapacityChart.htm](http://www.rowand.net/Shop/Tech/WireCapacityChart.htm)

TL;DR totally possible with 20vdc to use a wire thinner than a BIC pen to
deliver 100w ~6ft in addition to high-speed data.

------
yincrash
They also said it supports the USB PD to up to 100W (@ 20V) which is enough
current (5A) to support stuff like a Macbook Air.

~~~
XorNot
Its enough to support any laptop I know of. Very vew exceed 100W.

~~~
reitzensteinm
Pretty much the only way to exceed 100W is to be running a high end gaming
laptop, while actively playing games.

A desktop equivalent(ish) quad core hyperthreaded i7-4700MQ that turbos up to
3.4ghz only has a 47W TDP, which is a worst case number, so even heavy duty
number crunching isn't enough.

Even exceeding 100W, you'll still be draining the battery much more slowly
than when unplugged. At 125W the battery will last 5x longer.

It's hard to imagine a real world situation where 100W would be insufficient,
where the user wouldn't be very much better off using a desktop machine for
gaming.

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seanp2k2
I'm surprised they're not calling it ~"USB Smart" like Bluetooth:
[http://www.bluetooth.com/Pages/Bluetooth-Smart-
Devices.aspx](http://www.bluetooth.com/Pages/Bluetooth-Smart-Devices.aspx)

The logo for "USB 3.1 SuperSpeed +" is very similar to the current "SuperSpeed
USB" logo: [http://low-powerdesign.com/donovansbrain/wp-
content/uploads/...](http://low-powerdesign.com/donovansbrain/wp-
content/uploads/2014/06/superspeed-usb-logo-1.png)

EDIT: Here's the USB 3.1 logo (USB 3.0 logo above for comparison):
[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Usb-3.1-l...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Usb-3.1-logo.jpg)

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rreay
Oh joy, they still use that damn diving board design on the device side. I've
broken 3 devices when that diving board breaks.

~~~
dublinben
Really? How aggressively are you plugging in your USB cables?

~~~
mvid
I have the same problem. One faulty or aggressive plug angle, and you break
some pins or the inner paddle cracks.

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PhasmaFelis
One step closer to that glorious day when the back of my desktop has like 20
USB sockets and nothing else.

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ChuckMcM
This will be interesting, and its needed to keep up with the evolving use of
USB. The downside is that once this is everywhere you will be keeping a drawer
full of USB adapters (kind of like those USB/PS2 keyboard adapters that are
everywhere, or DVI/VGA)

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bcohen5055
Just as Randal publishes this...[http://xkcd.com/1406/](http://xkcd.com/1406/)

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debian69
Doesn't look at all like lightning connector :)

