0:03

I'm gonna guess that you know what

0:05

USB jacks are. It

0:08

is the most successful interface in

0:10

the history of personal computing, and

0:12

it's migrated into every device

0:14

under the sun. Everything from

0:17

toothbrushes to power tools to, obviously,

0:20

automobiles, right? I'm also

0:22

gonna guess that you don't love USB

0:24

cables. They have three different possible

0:26

shapes at the ends, so you always grab the wrong

0:29

one, and half the time, you plug it in upside

0:31

down. It only goes in one way.

0:33

The world's manufacturers

0:35

listened. They've collaborated on a

0:38

new, improved super cable that

0:40

can replace power cords, video

0:42

cables, audio cables, and USB

0:44

cables. The connectors are symmetrical,

0:47

so you can't insert them the wrong way. The

0:49

ends are identical, too, so it doesn't matter

0:51

which end you grab first. And these

0:53

cables are interchangeable among gadgets

0:56

and brands. It's called USB-C,

0:59

and I found the people who created it. I'm

1:02

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1:03

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2:33

Season 2, episode 17. The

2:36

pulse-pounding origin story of USB-C.

2:43

Honestly, you probably don't

2:45

appreciate standards enough.

2:48

I mean when you buy a toaster, you

2:50

don't have to worry that its power plug won't fit

2:53

your wall outlet. When you buy a light

2:55

bulb, you don't have to worry that it won't fit the

2:57

lamp. Gas nozzles always

2:59

fit your gas tank opening. Every HDMI

3:02

cable fits every TV. Every

3:04

belt can slide through every belt loop. You

3:07

don't have to think about it. But

3:09

you should think about it. You are

3:11

enjoying the work of some anonymous nerds

3:14

who spent a lot of effort designing

3:16

those standards and promoting them so

3:18

that every manufacturer would be on board

3:20

with them so that you don't spend

3:23

your life in a frazzled hell of things

3:25

that don't fit other things.

3:27

If you want to know how awful that would

3:29

be, consider a realm where we

3:31

don't have standards. Power

3:33

cords and power bricks. You've

3:36

probably got a box of them, accumulated

3:38

from over the years, socked away in some

3:40

closet. A huge and stupid

3:42

global source of waste just

3:45

because there wasn't one kind

3:47

of power cord that's unified

3:49

across brands and companies.

3:51

Anyway, we are gathered here today

3:53

to talk about one particular standard,

3:56

USB-C. There's

3:58

a hyphen in there. USB-C. USB-C

4:03

is one really amazing cable.

4:06

It has no upside down, like

4:08

the old USB, you can't insert

4:10

it the wrong way, and it's the same

4:13

connector on both ends. You can't

4:15

grab the wrong end. A USB-C

4:18

cable can replace the power, video,

4:21

audio, and data jacks of

4:23

every

4:24

phone, tablet, and laptop from

4:26

every company. One single way

4:29

to charge everything you own. One

4:31

cable to rule them all. I've

4:33

heard it called the Jesus Jack.

4:36

These days, these jacks come on phones,

4:38

tablets, laptops, desktop PCs,

4:40

monitors, cameras, headphones, cars,

4:43

mice, flash drives, printers, and

4:45

on and on. It's how you charge

4:47

a MacBook or an iPad Pro or

4:49

a Microsoft Surface or a Google

4:52

Anything or a Samsung Anything.

4:55

The formal name is USB Type-C,

4:58

but normal people never say that. First

5:01

of all, can I say USB-C? Is that fine?

5:03

You may. In fact, Jeff will tell you

5:05

that USB Type-C and USB-C

5:08

are both registered trademarks, so they're

5:10

both valid uses. I notice

5:13

in your emails, you guys say

5:15

USB Type-C, so I didn't know if

5:17

I was offending you. No, no, no.

5:19

Oh, okay.

5:20

And who came up with the name USB-C? I

5:23

came up with USB Type-C, if

5:25

that's what you mean. It drives me crazy that

5:27

an achievement as huge as this,

5:30

one that affects almost every single person

5:32

on the planet, goes completely

5:34

uncredited. Nobody asks

5:37

where these standards come from. They just

5:39

sort of show up in your life. Your new

5:41

laptop has a USB-C power cord,

5:43

and you go, oh, thank God, I don't have to worry

5:45

about plugging this cable in the right way anymore.

5:48

Today, you're going to meet the people

5:50

who brought you that life-changing

5:52

favor. So I'm Brad Saunders

5:55

from Intel Corporation, and

5:58

I help lead the

6:00

development of USB standards and

6:03

enable the USB ecosystem. I'm

6:05

Jeff Ravencraft. I'm the president

6:07

chief operating officer

6:09

of the USB implementers

6:11

forum, which we call the USBIF

6:14

for short. I had

6:16

worked at Intel for 23 years and I

6:18

retired about 11 years ago.

6:23

I've been involved in USB for over 20

6:26

years now. Unless you're involved

6:28

in standards, people don't really understand

6:31

how it all works. Yeah, no. I mean, has

6:33

the lay person ever heard of USB implementers

6:36

forum? No. But insiders

6:39

in the electronics industry probably

6:41

have. Yes. Absolutely.

6:44

Yes, there is in fact a

6:46

committee who decides this stuff. The

6:49

USBIF is a nonprofit

6:52

industry group made up of volunteers

6:54

from various electronics manufacturers.

6:57

To be honest, their work wasn't entirely

7:00

born out of a desire to make our lives better.

7:02

They also want to sell you stuff and

7:05

you're much more likely to buy stuff if

7:08

it actually works. When USB

7:10

was first, let's say invented,

7:12

Intel had a

7:14

chip, AMD had a chip,

7:17

another company had a chip. And

7:19

lo and behold, none of

7:21

the products worked together. That was

7:23

the promise of USB, right?

7:26

That all this stuff would interoperate. I

7:28

could buy a computer that had an AMD

7:31

chip and a printer from HP

7:34

and a hard drive from C and

7:36

all this stuff would just work together. Well, it

7:38

didn't. You know,

7:41

it didn't work.

7:42

And that is why they founded the

7:45

USB implementers forum to

7:47

iron out these incompatibilities.

7:50

That really helped solve it. And that was one

7:52

of the key functions of forming the USBIF

7:55

was to do that. The founding

7:57

members were IBM, Intel, Microsoft, and Microsoft.

8:00

Microsoft, Compaq, DEC, NEC,

8:02

and Nortel. Today, the members

8:04

include Apple, HP, and

8:07

over a thousand other companies.

8:09

Arch Rivals working together

8:12

to create a standard that works across all

8:14

of their gear. Kinda gives you

8:16

hope for all of us, you know? Anyway,

8:19

it's my guess that the reason most people hate

8:21

regular USB is because

8:23

it's a one-sided jack.

8:26

50% of the time, it won't go in because

8:29

you've got it upside down. It's

8:31

super annoying. Maybe

8:34

you can explain why

8:36

anyone thought it was a good idea to have a one-sided

8:39

connector in the first place. You

8:42

know, back in the day, 1994, 95, almost every

8:44

connector was keyed, what we called

8:46

keyed,

8:51

to specifically make sure that it went

8:53

in a certain way. That was just tradition

8:55

in those days to make things that way

8:58

because

8:59

in order to make something flippable,

9:03

you have to take into account other

9:05

aspects of the connector, like making

9:08

it such that it's symmetric and

9:10

that plans when you flip it map

9:13

to obviously the

9:15

same kind of function after you flipped

9:17

it.

9:18

So,

9:19

quite frankly, it just wasn't on their

9:21

minds to add that level

9:24

of complexity.

9:25

Oh yeah, I guess we have to talk about

9:27

the official names of these various ends

9:31

of regular USB. The

9:33

main one, the one that plugs into your

9:35

computer, is that thin rectangular

9:38

connector about half an inch wide and

9:41

it's technically called USB-A. The

9:45

opposite end of the cable, the one that went

9:47

into your printer, is technically called USB-B.

9:51

It was originally a chunky, squarish

9:54

jack. Over the years,

9:55

the USB standards group

9:57

came up with standard, mini, and

10:00

micro sizes of that B-end

10:03

to fit smaller devices, which

10:05

only multiplied the number of cables you needed

10:07

and the number of times we had to spend rummaging

10:10

to find the right cord.

10:12

The idiotic one-way-up design of

10:14

USB was one compelling

10:16

argument for redesigning USB.

10:19

Apple had introduced its own proprietary

10:21

cable, the Lightning cable, which

10:24

you could jam into the iPhone without worrying

10:26

about which way was up.

10:28

And that didn't make its competitors look good.

10:30

Somebody had started selling

10:33

a connector that flipped and

10:35

happened to be on a thing called the iPhone. We

10:37

were influenced by the users

10:40

saying, this is a lot easier than a

10:42

USB connector. But the biggest reason

10:44

to redesign USB was not about

10:46

convenience of plugging.

10:48

After 20 years of blanketing

10:51

the earth with regular USB,

10:53

somewhere along the line, one of you guys

10:56

said, you know what I think we should do is improve

10:59

on this

11:00

and start a new generation. Where

11:03

did that idea come from? It had to

11:05

do with the fact that the USB standard

11:08

A and the USB micro B, which

11:10

was the most popular,

11:12

were running out of performance

11:15

headlight. How were

11:17

we gonna get more and more performance

11:19

through the connectors? By

11:21

performance, he means speed. That's

11:24

how techies say speed.

11:26

So was it time now

11:28

to start a new connector? And

11:31

of course, certainly if we

11:33

did, we would address

11:35

how maybe to make it even more friendly to

11:38

use, same time. I

11:40

think in addition, devices

11:42

were getting much smaller and much

11:45

thinner. The cell phones got smaller,

11:47

right? Notebooks that went to

11:49

laptops that went to tablets.

11:51

It drives change. Had the USB

11:55

working groups gotten

11:57

quieter and smaller over the decades?

12:00

It seems like the standard was baked.

12:03

It was done. Did you need to keep meeting

12:05

and having minutes and dues and all that stuff?

12:08

It wasn't really done. I mean, we've progressed

12:10

many, many times performance wise.

12:14

So original USB or regular

12:16

USB, as you called it, started out

12:19

at

12:20

very, very low megabit data

12:22

rates,

12:23

eventually getting up to 480 megabits

12:25

per second.

12:27

And then, long and behold, we needed

12:29

something much faster and that's where USB 3

12:32

came about. That was 40

12:34

times faster, five gigabits

12:36

per second, and then 10 gigabits per second.

12:39

Sorry, sorry. Day of the tech translator

12:41

butting in again. Here's something else

12:43

techies do. They give network

12:45

speeds in gigabits per second.

12:48

Instead of the measurement, you probably know from

12:50

your phone or computer,

12:52

gigabytes. If you're scoring

12:54

at home, one gigabyte contains

12:56

eight gigabits. So

12:59

when they say the top speed of USB was

13:02

five gigabits per second, that

13:05

means you could transfer a file in

13:07

one second whose size is 5

13:10

eighths of a gigabyte.

13:11

And if all that makes your eyes glaze over,

13:14

just forget it.

13:15

So we never really sat idle. We've

13:18

always generally looked at improvements

13:20

in silicon technology to drive the

13:23

improvements and the signaling methods across

13:25

the wires,

13:27

whether it be ethernet, USB storage,

13:30

but eventually it's gonna run out on us,

13:32

you know? By 2012, the

13:34

speed of USB had indeed run

13:36

out. The world wanted faster,

13:39

faster machines, faster transfer

13:41

over cables. It sounds

13:43

like the impetus for

13:46

starting from scratch was speed

13:48

performance, but obviously

13:50

there were a whole bunch of other

13:53

birds you wanted to hit with this one stone.

13:56

Can you rattle off the complete number

13:59

of design goals?

13:59

you had for this new spec? We

14:02

wanted to make sure we had something that would last

14:05

for 10, 15, 20 years.

14:08

So we had to set some lofty goals about

14:10

where it was going to go. So data,

14:13

power,

14:15

obviously the ability to

14:17

flip it,

14:18

changing both ends of the cable, and

14:21

then size of course. Size was

14:23

a critical thing. Micro-B was

14:25

kind of the benchmark for small. Micro-B

14:28

is the charging connector on a lot of older Android

14:31

phones.

14:32

Quite frankly, we didn't quite make it that

14:34

small.

14:35

But the reasoning is because what we

14:37

made was a lot more robust.

14:39

The computer manufacturers on the committee wanted

14:41

a jack that would be so rugged it

14:44

wouldn't snap if you shoved the back

14:46

of the PC against the wall the way

14:49

USB Micro-B might.

14:51

That connector was not mechanically

14:54

strong enough to support

14:57

anything other than a cell phone.

14:59

That connector might in fact break

15:01

because of the way it was designed.

15:04

And so that mechanical

15:06

part of it forced part of a redesign

15:08

or an updated design. Yeah, so

15:10

not just small, but small and sturdy.

15:13

Correct. All right. So

15:15

imagine it's 2012. Barack

15:18

Obama is president. Hurricane Sandy

15:20

blasts the East Coast. The Encyclopedia

15:23

Britannica ceases publication after 246

15:25

years. And

15:27

Jeff and Brad think it's time to retire

15:30

the beloved and be hated USB

15:33

standard. We went in with a proposal

15:36

and said, guys, isn't this the right time to

15:38

get started on this

15:40

proposal? And it took

15:42

a better part of two years from

15:45

bringing up the original idea to

15:48

actually publishing a

15:50

specification that's dated August

15:52

of 2014. It

15:55

was time to bring together the brightest

15:57

engineering minds from all the different

15:59

electronics

15:59

companies. USB

16:02

implementers forum, assemble.

16:08

About 70 of these engineers

16:10

began to meet in person every six weeks.

16:13

Their mission, to replace the aging

16:16

USB connector with something newer, faster

16:19

and much easier to use.

16:21

There's a process, obviously, right? We

16:24

parched some out some of the work to

16:26

subcommittees like the connector

16:29

and cable had a separate little group that

16:31

focused really on the drawings

16:33

and mechanical requirements.

16:35

And another group focused on the electrical

16:38

signaling performance. And then

16:40

I ran the group that brought it all together

16:42

and talked about the protocol looking at

16:45

function properly.

16:47

You have these large companies that have

16:49

the dollars and have the staff

16:52

where they can dedicate people to a standards

16:54

work. And then you have a startup

16:57

where they're washing the dishes and their

16:59

mop on the floor and they're

17:01

also designing a product in the other room.

17:04

So all of those things made sure

17:06

you haven't missed anything. Right.

17:08

For the most part. You need big companies.

17:10

You need small startup companies and everything

17:13

in between. Between the in-person meetings,

17:15

they held virtual meetings for about five

17:18

hours a week. People brought up complaints

17:20

and problems, suggested solutions,

17:23

debated the solutions, voted on them, approved

17:25

them and distributed the updates to

17:27

the other members.

17:29

In the beginning, the standard wasn't

17:31

even called USBC. In

17:34

my early project names, I was

17:36

just calling it Newconn or New Conne- Oh.

17:39

Because we didn't have a name at that point. I've

17:41

never actually loved the name USBC.

17:44

It's too techie sounding, but I guess it's

17:46

better than Newconn. By the

17:48

time the specs of the New Connector were hammered out,

17:51

they had a name. C was

17:53

obviously the next letter in the alphabet. So

17:56

at this point, you've got all the powerhouse

17:58

companies involved.

17:59

I mean, you've got arch rivals

18:03

sitting around the table trying to agree

18:05

on a standard.

18:07

Isn't each company elbowing in

18:09

for its own interests? Yes,

18:12

clearly we are competitors. There

18:15

are different perspectives

18:18

for all parties coming in, but quite

18:20

frankly, we all had a common

18:22

goal. We call it coopetition.

18:25

So in the beginning, you cooperate

18:28

as a group

18:29

to make a pie. You're

18:31

all getting together to make a big apple pie.

18:33

But once the pie is made,

18:36

then you all compete for

18:40

your slice of the pie

18:41

and how big you can get, how big

18:44

your piece can be, right? We

18:46

cooperate in the beginning and we compete

18:49

on the back end, right? Now I'm

18:51

going to extend your analogy

18:53

with the pie.

18:55

Because you've made it a standard,

18:57

the pie gets bigger.

18:59

The size of the market gets

19:01

bigger. So even though we are

19:03

now carving up the pie, because the

19:05

pie is so much bigger than it would

19:07

have been if we instead stayed

19:10

proprietary,

19:11

there's such huge opportunity that can

19:13

be shared amongst many, many participants.

19:16

And everybody still has a healthy

19:18

business. Yeah, there's enough

19:21

pie for everybody. You

19:24

guys are making me hungry. In the

19:26

beginning, the implementers didn't know

19:28

what their new con would look like.

19:30

They just knew they had a long wish list

19:32

of features and characteristics for it.

19:35

You wanted it small, but sturdy. You

19:38

wanted it to carry data and video

19:40

and audio and power. You wanted

19:42

it to be able to work on laptops, phones, tablets,

19:45

headphones.

19:46

Every brand should interact

19:48

with each other. I could borrow

19:51

a Dell charger to work on my Apple laptop.

19:54

Flipability, reversibility.

19:56

Surely there was some point in all this

19:59

where you're... you guys were like, this part's

20:01

going to be hard to pull off. Yes, that's

20:04

a true statement. After the

20:06

ads, Brad and Jeff will reveal

20:09

the one weird trick that made

20:11

it possible for USBC to

20:13

perform its long list of stunts.

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if she was wrong? And what if we could prove

21:03

it?

21:03

From Wondery and Campsite Media comes

21:05

season three of the hit podcast Suspect,

21:08

co-hosted by me, Matt Cher, alongside

21:11

attorney Lara Basilon. This

21:13

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on Apple podcasts.

21:36

Welcome back. We were talking

21:39

about the wish list of features that the world's

21:41

electronics companies were hoping to include

21:43

in USBC, the replacement

21:45

for the decades old USB standard.

21:48

High on the list was a desire to

21:51

wipe out that absurd proliferation

21:53

of connectors on traditional USB

21:56

cables, you know, a B

21:58

micro mini standard all that's

22:00

stuff.

22:01

On the implementer's forum dream board,

22:03

the new cable would have only

22:05

one universal connector shape.

22:08

Same plug on both ends on

22:11

every cable from every manufacturer.

22:14

They came up with a tiny flattened

22:17

oval a third of an inch wide.

22:20

Was there ever any other shape

22:22

considered? Did anyone try

22:24

triangular? There were some people that

22:27

were clearly influenced by what

22:29

was already in the market.

22:31

And even to some degree,

22:33

we investigated connector

22:35

designs that might,

22:37

you know, mimic

22:39

the Apple Lightning, but with more pins

22:41

and whatever.

22:42

That turned out to not be technically feasible.

22:45

Remember, because it has to flip, it has

22:47

to have a symmetrical

22:49

appearance to it around

22:51

the various axes, both X and Y.

22:54

So

22:55

it had to be symmetrical. Triangles are

22:58

technically not a symmetrical thing.

23:01

A square, obviously, or a rectangle could

23:03

be. But

23:04

if you have square edges or corners,

23:07

that becomes more something you

23:09

have to physically align your visually.

23:12

When I first did the

23:15

demonstrations of USB type C, I

23:17

was plugging things together behind my back

23:19

and showing people how easy it was to do.

23:22

And it had a lot to do with the natural

23:25

round using edge shape

23:27

that we came up with. Now, inside

23:30

the exciting world of plug design, the

23:32

Lightning connector loomed large at the

23:35

time. That's Apple's proprietary

23:37

charging jack that came on every iPhone

23:39

and iPad at the time. It's tiny,

23:42

it's sturdy,

23:43

and there's no wrong side up.

23:46

So I'm going to jump in and say

23:48

the obvious, which is

23:50

somebody had started selling a connector

23:53

that flipped and happened to be

23:55

on a thing called the iPhone. We

23:57

were influenced by the users saying

24:00

this is a lot easier than a USB connector.

24:03

But we were quick

24:05

to point out that what they had done

24:07

for the iPhone, while a great

24:10

solution for its use,

24:12

was very limited. It doesn't

24:14

have any performance margin.

24:17

It's very few pins. It doesn't

24:20

necessarily carry a lot of power. It

24:22

isn't really the right solution for what we

24:24

were trying to do. Remember, we're focusing

24:26

not on phones only. We got PCs

24:29

and all kinds of applications to consider.

24:33

It seems like the

24:35

Lightning Jack is

24:38

inside out from USB-C.

24:40

Correct. The Lightning Jack is a tongue

24:43

with the wires on the outside of it. Correct. As

24:46

opposed to a sleeve with the wires on the inside of it. Correct.

24:49

And it's to some degree why it seems

24:51

smaller. Why it's so much smaller

24:54

in appearance because you don't actually have all the

24:56

shell around the thing.

24:58

But it does lead to some technical

25:00

challenges.

25:01

If you were to touch one of those contacts

25:04

to another metal object, you could get

25:06

an electrostatic

25:08

shock to the connector or the plug.

25:10

Yeah, getting electrocuted by your iPhone's

25:13

power cord would not be a good look. Apple

25:16

dodged the problem by adding a protection

25:19

circuit. It works great for something

25:21

like the Lightning connector, where high-speed

25:23

data transfer isn't the point. Those

25:27

protection circuits are very hard to do for signals

25:29

that run at gigabit speeds,

25:32

which are a lot more sensitive silicon and

25:34

a lot more difficult to protect

25:37

against. So we had to naturally protect it with

25:39

shells and mechanical

25:41

solution as well. Now, the biggest

25:44

wish list item for the new connector was

25:46

to make it faster than USB or

25:48

Lightning. And the obvious

25:50

way to do that was to include more

25:53

wires inside that could all be

25:55

shunting data simultaneously.

25:57

signal

26:00

lines in the Cape have

26:02

dramatically changed. But standard

26:05

A was how many pins, Brad?

26:07

The original is four. Yeah. Four

26:09

pins. Only four wires

26:12

in there? Yes.

26:15

Oh my gosh. Now in

26:17

the USB-C cable, there are.

26:21

So wait a minute. Does that mean that since

26:23

Type-C is flippable, have

26:26

you had to duplicate the

26:28

leads on both sides? Well,

26:31

yes and no. So

26:34

remember I said we need in more performance.

26:36

And one way you get more performance

26:38

is to increase the number of wires

26:40

between the two

26:42

devices and run data

26:44

in parallel, you might say. Right. So

26:47

the original two wire USB interface

26:50

was send signal one

26:52

way, then listen for

26:54

signal to come back was what we called half

26:57

duplex. And you flip back and

26:59

forth to have a conversation or move data.

27:02

But in USB-C, one set of

27:04

wires carries the

27:05

outbound signals and a second set

27:07

carries the return signals.

27:10

So now we were no longer having to

27:12

necessarily wait to hear conversation

27:15

and go back and forth in a controlled way. We were

27:17

able to talk simultaneously.

27:20

Data is going in and data is going out the same time.

27:23

We even doubled the number of

27:25

channels that we even did that on. So

27:28

USB-2 was two wires of data

27:31

communications. USB-3 was

27:33

four wires of data communication and

27:35

USB Type-C is A.

27:38

And what we did is we mapped it in

27:40

the connector so that when you flip it, one

27:43

channel basically flipped the position

27:45

of the other channel. Oh,

27:49

in other words, the outbound wires become

27:52

the inbound ones and vice versa.

27:54

Clever. Now, a few minutes ago

27:56

when Brad was listing the key design goals,

27:59

I don't know. I don't know if you caught it, but he said... Data,

28:02

power,

28:04

obviously, the

28:05

ability to flip it. Yes,

28:08

he said power. Meaning

28:10

you can use USB-C as

28:12

a power cord. Now

28:14

the existing USB could serve

28:16

as a power cord for some gadgets.

28:19

That's how you charged up some Android phones,

28:21

for example. But there were two big

28:24

limitations. First, the

28:26

power went only one direction. From

28:28

the computer to the smaller gadget.

28:31

Second, you couldn't send much power over

28:34

a USB cable.

28:35

Not enough for a laptop, for example.

28:37

In USB-C, the designers

28:39

hoped to wipe out both of those limits. It

28:42

turned out

28:44

we were able to map our design

28:46

about how to deliver more power

28:49

and deliver that power potentially

28:52

in different directions. Because

28:55

as you know today, you can

28:57

connect to a dock or a display

29:00

and get the power from yet into the

29:02

PC. I cannot tell

29:04

you how cool that is. What

29:06

he's saying is that today's computer

29:08

monitors have USB-C

29:11

jacks. And when you connect your laptop

29:13

to the monitor,

29:14

it gets powered from the

29:16

monitor. Imagine if

29:19

you suddenly appeared here

29:21

with me in my home office at

29:23

this very moment.

29:25

Well, first of all, I'd be like, Excuse

29:27

me? How did you get in here?

29:31

Anyway, what you would see is

29:33

an LG widescreen monitor on my

29:35

desk connected to my Mac laptop

29:37

with one single cable.

29:40

I don't need the power cord that came with the

29:43

MacBook. The monitor powers

29:45

the MacBook. And the MacBook

29:47

transmits its audio and video signals

29:49

to the monitor. All simultaneously,

29:52

all over a single USB-C

29:54

cable.

29:55

It is super awesome. Now,

29:58

in the olden days of...

29:59

regular USB, the two ends

30:02

of the cable were totally different. The

30:04

computer end was always that skinny

30:06

rectangle plug. The far end

30:08

was, well, its shape depended on

30:11

what you were connecting,

30:12

but it was something other than the skinny

30:14

rectangle. So an old USB

30:17

cable always knows which is the computer

30:19

end.

30:20

But on USB-C, both

30:23

ends of every cable are identical. And

30:25

what that means is that power can flow

30:28

either direction.

30:29

When one of your gadgets is running out of battery,

30:32

you can recharge it from another gadget.

30:35

It's mouth to mouth resuscitation for appliances.

30:38

A phone can recharge another phone, or

30:41

your iPad can charge up your headphones.

30:43

Or, in an extreme case, your phone

30:46

could even supply a feeble trickle of power

30:48

to your laptop. You just have

30:50

to dive deeply enough into your phone's

30:52

advanced settings to tell it whether

30:54

it's the sender or the receiver of

30:57

the power.

30:59

Now if you've been listening to Unsung

31:01

Science for a while, and I

31:03

truly hope you have, and

31:05

if you have, well, thank you, you

31:08

clearly have excellent taste, please

31:10

tell your friends about this podcast. We

31:12

have like zero advertising budget,

31:14

so it's all on you.

31:19

Where was I going with this? Oh yeah,

31:21

if you've been listening to Unsung Science for a while,

31:24

then you know my favorite part of these stories.

31:26

It's when the inventor or the scientist hits

31:29

a brick wall,

31:30

when we find out the hard part, and

31:32

how they innovated their way out of it.

31:35

In the case of USB-C,

31:37

the problem was this. You

31:39

already know that there's no upside down

31:42

for a USB-C plug, and you

31:44

now know that it works no matter which end

31:46

of the cable you grab. There's no wrong

31:49

end. But here's something we haven't

31:51

discussed.

31:52

What happens if there's a twist

31:55

in the cable? See, wires

31:57

inside a USB-C cable are not

31:59

so bad. symmetrical. One end can

32:02

be upside down relative to the other end.

32:05

So the two gadgets you're connecting

32:07

somehow need to know if the cable

32:09

has a twist in it. For

32:11

the USB designers, this

32:14

was the hard part.

32:16

And you really keyed in on the hardest problem

32:18

to solve any choice.

32:20

The solution was to add a special

32:23

bonus wire in the cable.

32:25

Do you guys have a name for that magic

32:27

cable? We call the wire the CC

32:29

wire, the configuration channel.

32:33

And how does the CC wire decide

32:35

if one end of the cable is flipped?

32:38

This is really cool. Every USB-C

32:40

socket on every gadget in the world

32:43

has two possible places

32:45

for that magic CC wire to connect.

32:48

Two little metal pins. But

32:50

when you plug in the cable, the CC wire

32:53

connects to only one of those

32:55

two pins. The other pin sits

32:57

empty.

32:58

And depending on which one you flip it,

33:01

that one signal wire connect to one

33:03

of those two pins. And

33:05

therefore we can actually determine whether

33:07

the connector is upside down or not in

33:10

the socket. So

33:12

in essence, you've taken the

33:15

chore of determining which is

33:17

right side up away from the human

33:20

and put it into your own connector. Correct.

33:24

And the cable architecture. I

33:26

let you know that this one wire

33:28

behavior, that one wire

33:31

takes 70 pages to fully

33:34

describe

33:35

within the specification for USB

33:37

type C.

33:38

I kind of left out part of the reason it's so

33:41

complex. The CC wire is also

33:43

how the two connected devices negotiate

33:46

which one is the sender of the power or

33:48

the data and which is the receiver. The

33:51

configuration channel wire is the conduit

33:54

that makes the whole system smart.

33:57

Finally, after nearly two years

33:59

of haggling and... proposing and voting

34:01

and testing, the USB implementers

34:03

forum had something ready to implement.

34:06

In August 2014, they

34:08

published the specifications for USB

34:11

Type-C to the electronics

34:13

world. Was there some kind of beer

34:16

bash internally? Did everyone

34:18

send around bottles of champagne?

34:20

No, we didn't have any parties.

34:23

Instead, Brad says, the engineers

34:26

who worked on the USB spec

34:27

received the kind of celebratory blowout that

34:30

only USB engineers can enjoy,

34:33

acknowledgement at a developer's conference.

34:36

That year, we obviously

34:38

introduced USB Type-C, and

34:41

the engineers get to proudly stand

34:43

up and present their creation

34:46

and answer all the really cool questions

34:48

about

34:49

why something works the way it does. I'm

34:51

a marketing guy by trade, right? So

34:54

it would not be uncommon for me

34:56

at a

34:57

particular event for a

35:00

new version

35:02

to buy lots of shots of

35:04

whatever, of

35:05

tequila or whatever

35:08

to celebrate. And so

35:10

we do have

35:11

those times where I've ordered many,

35:13

many, many shots of tequila, I can tell you that.

35:16

Now I'll be real with you. Once

35:19

the electronics companies unleashed USB-C

35:21

upon the world, the public's first

35:23

reaction was,

35:25

eh, like, come

35:28

on, now we have another kind of cable

35:30

to deal with. And you're telling me we got

35:32

to buy adapters for all the USB

35:34

stuff we already have? For

35:36

example, Apple adopted USB-C

35:39

as the power charger for its MacBook laptops.

35:42

People were like, come on, Apple. You're

35:45

changing your power connector again.

35:48

A connector change is

35:50

always the most difficult in the industry

35:53

to pull off.

35:54

Anytime you change that interface

35:57

for the consumer,

35:58

it's extremely difficult. difficult to pull

36:01

off in the industry. Yeah.

36:03

What's in it for them to go through is

36:05

something they know will upset consumers. The

36:07

benefits

36:08

that they could give to their their consumer,

36:11

number one, is a huge thing.

36:14

The charging capability, the power,

36:16

the increase in performance, right.

36:19

And this this ease of use

36:21

with the cable. I don't have

36:23

to flip it three times. I don't have to

36:25

have an A and a B.

36:27

Some people also griped that there are now

36:29

different speeds of USB-C

36:32

cables. Every cable works.

36:34

But if you need the maximum data speed,

36:37

like for a hard drive

36:38

or a lot of power, like for a computer,

36:41

you should make sure the cable you're using says 80 gigabytes

36:45

per second or 240 watts

36:47

or whatever. Although you generally don't have

36:49

to worry about it because your hard drive

36:51

or laptop generally comes with

36:54

the proper cable.

36:55

I guess we have to ask, is there going

36:57

to be a USB-D in

37:00

a few more years?

37:02

What I can tell you right now is there's nothing already

37:05

on any drawing boards to replace

37:08

it. We do expect this technology

37:10

to last

37:11

for many, many years, decades, in

37:13

fact, is what we would anticipate.

37:16

But technologies do

37:19

evolve at some point.

37:22

USB type C may in fact not

37:24

be able to keep up. We will

37:26

continue to evolve as needed within

37:28

the USB type C architecture. So

37:31

that means for hard drives and computers

37:33

that connect over USB-C same

37:36

cable,

37:37

but even faster throughput.

37:39

Correct. Oh, that's another semi downside.

37:42

Although USB, the hardware is

37:45

always identical, the USB implementers

37:47

forum keeps upgrading the software

37:50

that shuttles data across the cable.

37:52

As a result, different gear handles

37:54

data transfers at different speeds,

37:57

which can get confusing. You have

37:59

to look closely at

37:59

the logo or the specs of the hard

38:02

drive or whatever to see how fast

38:04

it can pump data. In time though,

38:07

USB-C became the hit it deserves

38:09

to be. These jacks now

38:11

appear on laptops, tablets, phones, hard

38:14

drives, microphones, mice, speakers, keyboards,

38:17

monitors, cameras, headphones, drones,

38:19

printers, flash drives, cars, hotel

38:21

rooms, and on and on. Including,

38:24

by the way, Apple's latest laptops

38:27

and tablets and phones. The

38:29

new iPhone 15 family will also

38:31

have USB-C instead of the

38:34

old Lightning connectors.

38:35

They'll have to, because in October 2022, the

38:39

European Union passed a law mandating

38:42

USB-C in electronic gadgets.

38:45

If it doesn't have USB-C, you can't

38:47

sell it.

38:48

How about this for recognition when

38:51

European Union mandated

38:54

that USB-C would now

38:56

be on every phone, tablet, e-reader, earbud,

38:59

digital camera, headphone, game console,

39:01

portable speaker.

39:03

You guys did that. You

39:05

know, we're excited that they picked

39:08

USB-C for the

39:10

connection and for power.

39:12

But at the same time,

39:14

we don't really support legislating

39:16

technology

39:18

because the problem with governments

39:20

is they legislate this thing, it becomes

39:22

a law. And then let's

39:25

say two years from now,

39:27

who knows, the technology changes.

39:30

Well, then all those consumers

39:33

and that government is now trapped with

39:35

old technology. And they can't

39:37

move that fast

39:40

to change. Well, then

39:42

forget about the legislation. Stop

39:44

being engineers and start being human

39:46

beings. Does it

39:48

give you a welling sense of

39:51

pride that you have

39:52

literally made the world a better

39:55

place in a small but important way for

39:57

billions of human beings? It

39:59

does.

39:59

for me, I had

40:02

an echo stress cardiogram test

40:04

this morning

40:05

and I got off the treadmill

40:08

and this machine that shows a

40:10

picture of my heart and I looked down

40:12

and there's a USB port on

40:15

that machine

40:16

and I told the nurses, I go look there and I

40:18

pointed at it and the lady goes, that's

40:20

a USB port. I'm like, boom,

40:23

yes, it's on

40:25

that machine. My daughter

40:27

moved in to an apartment a number of years ago

40:30

and

40:30

the guy proudly entered, taking

40:33

her through the apartment, showing all the features,

40:35

pointed to the wall sockets that

40:37

had USB ports on it.

40:39

And the first thing out of her mouth is, wait

40:41

a minute, that's not USB-C, that's USB-A.

40:44

Where's USB-C? Tough

40:48

crowd. Because it's

40:50

a standard, the days of having to pay

40:52

for expensive proprietary chargers and

40:54

cables vanished almost overnight.

40:57

You want a spare charger for your Mac laptop?

41:00

You can pick one up on Amazon for 15 bucks

41:03

instead of buying an official Apple one for 90.

41:06

And slowly but surely, USB-C

41:09

has

41:09

made progress cleaning up that

41:11

universe of e-waste known as

41:13

power cords and power bricks. Now

41:16

there's one kind of power cord that's

41:19

unified across brands and companies.

41:22

My Samsung USB-C cable can

41:24

charge your Apple MacBook and

41:26

his Surface tablet.

41:28

All because a bunch of anonymous nerds

41:31

took it upon themselves to work out a

41:33

new standard to make your life

41:35

better.

41:38

Honestly, I sometimes question

41:40

who we worship in this country. Why

41:43

are there posters on

41:45

teenage walls of rock stars

41:47

and sports heroes? I

41:49

mean, why aren't there pictures of you two

41:52

shirtless on teenage bedroom

41:54

walls?

41:57

I can't even picture that. Yeah. I

42:00

can't either. I don't really want to.

42:04

I mean, in terms of changing the world, though. There

42:07

are many people behind this technology,

42:10

both in developing the specifications

42:12

and then ultimately developing the real products.

42:15

So we appreciate your thought, but

42:18

I'm not ready for a poster yet.

42:22

You've just listened to another episode of Unsung

42:25

Science with David Pogue. Don't

42:27

forget that the entire library of shows,

42:29

along with written transcripts, await

42:32

at unsungscience.com. This

42:34

podcast is a joint venture of Simon & Schuster

42:37

and CBS Sunday Morning, and it's

42:39

produced by PRX Productions. For

42:41

Simon & Schuster, the executive producers are

42:44

Richard Rohrer and Chris Lynch. The PRX

42:46

Production team is Jocelyn Gonzales, Morgan

42:49

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42:51

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42:54

composed the Unsung Science theme music. Our

42:56

fact checker is Christina Ribello and

42:59

Olivia Noble fixed the transcripts.

43:01

For more of my stuff, visit davidpogue.com

43:05

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43:07

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43:10

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