Europe gets universal charging standard

The European Commission has shown the first physical models for its forthcoming European phone charger standard.

Over 15 major phone makers voluntarily agreed to the directive, which will mean phone chargers will be brand-blind; able to charge any future phones sold in Europe.

Using a microUSB connection, which several phones already use, today’s model was enough to warrant a press conference from the European Commission, though most of us collectively shrugged- it’s been common knowledge for a fair while- and the EC made a similar noises late last year.

They hope that this should reduce any unnecessary waste caused by defunct phone chargers. The new charger standard only covers data phones- that is, phones that can be plugged into computers, and can exchange photos and other files. There’s also a proviso allowing adapters for phones without a microUSB port.

Here’s a bizarre video from the group. Though we’re not exactly sure what the point of it is….