14 DAY TRIAL // The International Electrotechnical Commission or IEC has just published the first globally relevant information about an upcoming universal notebook charger, designed to protect the ecosystem.
With such a technology at hand, when a laptop charger overheats (like in the recent case of the HP Chromebook 11 Chromebook) or malfunctions, users won't have to purchase a new one, because they'll be able to replace it with an older one.
More than that, the same charger could be used between a group of people living together like college students that inhabit the same dorm room. In turn, this will translate into less wires lying around and more space.
The IEC says that billions of external chargers are shipped out and the total e-waste quantity generated by them exceeds half a million tons every year. The new charger is an attempt to answer these environmental concerns.
So far the IEC has not specified whether or not any major notebook manufacturer has taken up the new technical specifications, and I wonder if they ever will, since chargers are a good way to make a profit. Lose your laptop charger and you don’t have any other option than buying a new one, as an HP charger won’t work for a Lenovo notebook.
The IEC technical specifications outline specifications for the external notebook chargers, the connector and the plug.