The USB Implementers Forum has had a busy week. At the tail end of February, it seemed to go to great lengths to make USB 3.2 as confusing as humanly possible, and today, it announced the upcoming release of the USB4 specification. At the moment, we've only got a draft specification for USB4, with the final spec to be delivered in the middle of 2019.
If you've tried to plug your phone into your laptop over the past couple of years, or to charge your tablet with your phone's charger, you'll probably have run into USB confusion. Now, things are set to get even stranger, with the USB-IF announcing the USB 3.2 specification and a shake-up in consumer branding.
There's a new phone from Meizu which has no ports, no buttons, no slots. This is the Meizu Zero, a smartphone that takes minimalism to a new level. Unlike the rest of the smartphone industry (with a few notable exceptions) this smartphone does not hesitate to remove all unnecessary bits and pieces from the smartphone experience. But has it gone too far?
Today some images of the Vivo Apex 2019 were leaked - or revealed on purpose - before the official launch of the Vivo Apex 2019. These images showed the device to look, at first, like a smartphone without a frontside camera and with a near-full-coverage front display. The back was silver, with two camera lenses and an LED flash - also, no buttons appeared on the sides, the top, or the bottom.
Joining its newly launched laptops are a series of new accessories from Lenovo, including a pair of speakers and a new USB-C hub. The latter of the three, the powered USB-C Travel Hub, will be available starting this month, though the speaker models won't be launching until later this spring. Each model offers features targeting professionals, including portability and support for Lenovo's PCs.
This week the folks at the USB-IF (USB Implementers Forum) announced the launch of their own USB Type-C Authentication Program. With this program, manufacturers may implement and be certified for the USB Type-C Authentication specification. For the end user - you - that means you'll soon be able to know immediately if a new USB-C cord is able to cryptographically authenticate - that is, give a secret handshake to your phone or PC before it's able to supply power or transfer data.
The Satechi "Aluminum Type-C Mobile Pro Hub Adapter" is the company's newest release, aimed directly at iPad Pro. This USB-C hub works with a wide variety of devices, and can extend the abilities of devices other than the iPad Pro. But the intent, here, today, is to make the iPad Pro connect to all the different devices which have thus far been allowed to work with iOS by Apple.
The iPad Pro 2018 in both sizes uses USB-C instead of Lightning for the first time in the product's history. The accessory-makers at HYPER just revealed one of the first USB-C hub accessories that's made specifically for the iPad Pro 2018. They call it their HyperDrive for iPad Pro. This USB-C hub plugs in to the iPad Pro's singular USB-C port and expands to a wide variety of ports, all in one pocketable accessory.
The folks at Standmac have a device called Wowstick Mini they'd like to deliver unto the world. This device is a pen-shaped and slightly larger than pen-sized device made to screw and unscrew all sorts of stuff. Included with the tool is a set of 56 bits and a built-in battery that's rechargeable with an included USB cord.
The next version of the iPhone will probably have a Lightning USB cord with USB-C on the other end - but after that? Imagine a world without cords. Now that we've got the ability to transmit power from one device to the other without cords, with wireless charging pads, what's left for reasons to keep cords at all? Surely only speed - since we can also transfer all the data we'd like with technologies like Bluetooth.
This Spring a developer by the name of Lexie Dostal hand-constructed an Android 3DS gaming phone. This device doesn't run 3DS games from Nintendo, but it does look a whole lot like a 3DS handheld gaming system. It actually uses some salvaged 3DS parts, as it were - but it runs an open hardware Android SBC called KitePhone.
Chinese company Fiio has launched a new high-res audio player called the M7. The new Fiio M7 model has a stylish, blocky design with both a touchscreen and physical buttons, as well as one big, important feature: USB-C. With this, buyers can use a pair of USB-C headphones with the audio player rather than traditional 3.5mm headphones.