
It’s 2017, every city needs buses with USB ports - jseliger
http://www.theverge.com/2017/1/22/14337732/its-2017-every-city-needs-buses-with-usb-ports
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niftich
Smartphones hold about a day's charge, which is fairly terrible compared to
the old dumbphone days, but fits fairly well with an average person's daily
schedule: you return to your place of shelter and charge your phone for about
two hours while you sleep.

Having USB ports on a bus is nice, and would likely help out those who forget
to charge their phone while they sleep, those who don't have access to a
stable residence, or those who used more charge than usual and are now low
battery, but is absolutely not a "it's 2017 -- why isn't this a thing"
requirement for something as short-term as one's trip on most public
transport.

Instead, USB charging-only ports or other ways of charging one's phone should
be ubiquitous in places where one spends a long-enough time anyway: long-
distance transportation (buses, trains, planes, cars, ferries, etc.), and
workplaces, even in places where one must place their phone in a locker for
the entire shift.

~~~
jseliger
_but fits fairly well with an average person 's daily schedule_

In theory this is true but in practice lots and lots of my friends have dead
phones or phones with older batteries or simply don't remember to recharge
their batteries. I teach as an adjunct and students often carry chargers with
them and plug their phones in during class (though I forbid phones and
computers in class: [https://jakeseliger.com/2008/12/28/laptops-students-
distract...](https://jakeseliger.com/2008/12/28/laptops-students-distraction-
hardly-a-surprise/)).

If you just look around, you'll probably see people with their faces in their
phones all the time. This may be a bad thing in many respects (I tend to buy
those arguments), but it can be good for public transportation, which lets
people do the thing they really want to do. If we want better transportation
systems, we have to get those systems to let people do the things they really
want to do (i.e. stare into their phones).

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gmuslera
Plugging phones using USB is a potential security nightmare. QI's style
chargers (if were more widespread on phones) would be better for that.

And I bet that companies making those kind of phones would win big if they
drop those chargers on buses for free.

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jerryszczerry
Yet another attack vector yay!

