Reading the title I thought this was a push for yet another ATX style standard so that we could have people build their own laptops which would be doomed to failure. But a standard power plug is something that could stand a chance.
There is just one big issue that needs to be addressed with this that I am not seeing in the article. What made the cell phone USB universal charging thing so awesome was that it applied to a whole lot more devices than just cell phones. It was applied to phones, small tablets, ereaders, cameras, smartphones, game controllers, and a whole host of other things. If a modern device runs on 10W or less then there is a good chance that it charged or operated with a micro USB port. The same thing could possibly be done with this new set of chargers.
Another issue is that there is simply not going to be a single charger that will be appropriate for laptops which range from 10W of power on the low end, up to 350W of power on the high end. At the very least we are looking at a 25W, 50W, 100W, and 200W power levels, each with their own physical connector so that people don't use the wrong chargers on the wrong devices. Devices over 200W are so few and varied that it would probably be difficult to enforce a standard on them.
Still, look around your house at just how many devices take 25W or less. Networking equipment like your modem, routers, and switches. AV equipment like CD/DVD/Bluray players, DVRs, your cable box, micro-consoles, etc. There are also other devices like answering machines and cordless phones to consider for people who still have them. And then you have laptops like netbooks, ultrabooks, and larger tablets. Many of these devices could benefit from a small standardized external power source. Many of these devices could share a single 150W power brick with up to 6 of 25W connections on it to save space. And more importantly, many of these types of devices are built to the lowest price possible and have horrible power supplies from protection and efficiency standpoints, and making a standardized highly efficient external PSU could go a long way at lowering the overall power use. This could cut down on a lot more ewaste than just what is contributed by laptops.
Moving up the food chain; how many devices in your home use less than 200W? Monitors, TVs, stereos, most desktops, laptops, all-in-ones, home servers, and game consoles all use 200W or less. If these devices each used external power bricks then it would help a few things. Firstly, would allow manufacturers to design a single device that is usable around the world rather than making regional devices which is a lot of the reason why companies use external power bricks in the first place. No internal PSU means less heat dissipation to design for, which means smaller and simpler heat sinks, less fans, and simpler lighter overall design. After the standard catches on then you would not have to ship a PSU with your device at all, which would cut out out a decent chunk of costs involved in designing, manufacturing, and shipping these power supplies.
On the consumer side it would suck at first. You would have to build a small collection of these power adapters for your home. Being high efficiency designs then these would probably not be cheap adapters, especially on the higher end of things. But they would be truly mass produced (especially if they are used in just about all consumer electronics) which means that they would be significantly cheaper than replacement power supplies for current devices. That would be a lot of power supplies to purchase, but it would be over time as you slowly accumulate the devices which would not hurt too much. Plus, once you have it then it will probably last you a good 10-15 years which is a lot longer than most of the devices that you would use with them. Plus there would be less power wasted (especially on higher end devices). So between lower device costs and power savings you would probably win out in the end.
Anywho, just saying that the best part of cell phone standardization was that it applied to a lot more than just cell phones. If we are going to make this kind of a standard for laptops, then it would be nice to see it apply to just about everything in these power ranges.
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