This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Additionally, USB 3.0, 3.1 and 3.2 labels provide no information on the speed. Rather, "Gen 1" means 5Gb/s, Gen 2 means 10 and Gen 2×2 means 20Gb/s. These "Gen" labels are seldom found on products however.
So for example USB 3.2 Gen 1 is 5Gb/s while USB 3.1 Gen 2 is 10Gb/s
It’s useful but it got me even more lost 😅
So many different standards my god.
It gets even better, each function of the port also needs proper support from the cable. Often cables do not support the full spec of usb to cut costs.
While the symbols in the post are often put on computers, for usb cables this is seldom done (only a few brands do).
Source: had to find a cable that supports both DP and PD to connect a portable external monitor after I lost the original cable. (1/9 cables worked)
Yes, this is incredibly annoying and it's also the reason why some USB cables cost more than others, even they may look the same superficially.
Luckily, all new PC seem to choose Thunderbolt over only alt mode, which makes stuff more easy, since they have the flash on the cable (but are also more extensive, I gear
The USB-C standard and particularly the USB PD (power delivery) is so complex it almost feels comical.
The PD standard document (freely available on usb.org) is over 800 pages long and features a lengthy part about the role of the cable alone which is mostly hidden from the user. Here's a short video about this issue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bZ0y9G-4Pc
I think that maybe having two similar lightning bolt symbols that mean different things wasn't the best design decision that the USB guys could have made.
Brother, now that thunderbolt 4 has been introduced it's even more confusing. Some of these labels are already out of date
The 'Thunderbolt' symbol is Intel's proprietary technology. Apple and Intel made it. First apple registered Thunderbolt as a trademark but later they transferred it to Intel. The lightning bolt icon which supports fast charging phones or other devices when connected to the laptop is different and developed by the USB guys.
One should note that though Thunderbolt over USB-C offers the same speed and connectivity as a native thunderbolt cable, the native cable can be 40m long whereas the USB-C implementation is max 2m
Things are muddied a bit though because USB 4 has built in support for thunderbolt
best design decision that the USB guys could have made
lol the whole history of usb is full of design fuckyous
USB-A: the 4 dimensional port.
I have never seen one with SS, but maybe they removed that part in Germany.
For those that don’t know
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schutzstaffel?wprov=sfti1
I see them on the back of full size computer cases and on docks. They will often be one SS port on the top. I had no idea what it meant before now.
I looked at two Dell laptops and a Geekom mini PC, all bought in Germany, and they all have the SS symbol.
So the SS Anne from Pokémon was a Nazi cruise ship?
You won't find these symbols on most devices though (certainly not on any macbook as the picture suggests).
By removing the symbols they were able to shave the case down 0.0003nm, making it the thinnest and lightest laptop ever.
