Meet the next-gen USB cable that could sweep away all others
The upcoming USB cable design is reversible, has no right-side-up or upside-down problems, and will click when you plug it in. Expect the new design on the market as soon as this year.
The new design, called USB Type-C, is designed to replace today's multitude of cables and fix a number of their shortcomings. Type-C USB jacks will be small enough for mobile phones, the cable will be reversible end-to-end so it doesn't matter which end you attach to your computer and which to your digital camera, and as with Apple's Lightning connector there will be no upside-down when it's time to actually plug the cable in.
The USB Implementers Forum, which oversees the Universal Serial Bus specification, announced its plans for a new USB cable and port in December but hadn't settled on the exact physical design of the connector. Now it's done, and the new cables could arrive in months, the USB IF said Wednesday at the Intel Developer Forum conference in Shenzhen, China. "The specification is anticipated to be completed in July 2014. We could see products with the new cable by end of year," the USB IF told CNET.
