1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,000 As much as they may pretend to hate each other, rival tech companies often do have incentives 2 00:00:04,000 --> 00:00:07,000 to work together. This tends to happen when both companies stand 3 00:00:07,000 --> 00:00:10,000 to benefit from it, and while that sounds obvious, 4 00:00:10,000 --> 00:00:13,000 this kind of collaboration has also benefited you. 5 00:00:13,000 --> 00:00:17,000 The poor consumer doesn't want to deal with 40 kinds of connectors for your laptop. 6 00:00:17,000 --> 00:00:22,000 Ever heard of USB-C? That's right, I'm talking about standards. 7 00:00:22,000 --> 00:00:25,000 Technologies that remain consistent across platforms 8 00:00:25,000 --> 00:00:28,000 so you can have a smooth experience no matter what you're using. 9 00:00:28,000 --> 00:00:32,000 We're talking HDMI, USB, HTML. 10 00:00:32,000 --> 00:00:35,000 These standards have made it possible to connect gadgets 11 00:00:35,000 --> 00:00:40,000 or view webpages anywhere in the world, no matter who manufactured them or what browser you're using. 12 00:00:40,000 --> 00:00:43,000 But how do companies that often exist as fierce rivals 13 00:00:43,000 --> 00:00:47,000 band together to create and maintain these standards? 14 00:00:47,000 --> 00:00:52,000 Like survivors in a zombie apocalypse. Sometimes, the problem that they're all trying to deal with 15 00:00:52,000 --> 00:00:55,000 is the fact that there's no standardization. 16 00:00:55,000 --> 00:00:59,000 This is exactly what happened with USB. It was pretty clear in the early 90s that there were going 17 00:00:59,000 --> 00:01:02,000 to be large numbers of new computer users in the near future, 18 00:01:02,000 --> 00:01:05,000 but one of the major hurdles to widespread adoption 19 00:01:05,000 --> 00:01:09,000 and consumers viewing the PC as a platform that was friendly to novices was that 20 00:01:09,000 --> 00:01:12,000 everything required a separate connector 21 00:01:12,000 --> 00:01:16,000 and some kind of software configuration, usually meaning you had to install drivers 22 00:01:16,000 --> 00:01:21,000 from a floppy disk for every little thing. So an engineer from Intel came up with the idea for USB, 23 00:01:21,000 --> 00:01:24,000 but it required multiple companies to get off the ground. 24 00:01:25,000 --> 00:01:31,000 Intel helped build chips that would power USB while IBM and Compact designed actual systems around it, 25 00:01:31,000 --> 00:01:35,000 and Microsoft collaborated with making the standard electrically suitable for peripherals 26 00:01:35,000 --> 00:01:40,000 like the mice they were trying to sell. USB's subsequent explosion in popularity did indeed 27 00:01:40,000 --> 00:01:43,000 make the PC more accessible to average users as a result, 28 00:01:43,000 --> 00:01:46,000 and today, over a thousand companies are members 29 00:01:46,000 --> 00:01:51,000 of the USB Implementers Forum, which is helpful in ensuring USB continues to work well 30 00:01:51,000 --> 00:01:54,000 across a huge range of devices. 31 00:01:54,000 --> 00:01:57,000 The USB logo on a product also helps consumers 32 00:01:57,000 --> 00:02:00,000 understand the product will simply work a certain way. 33 00:02:00,000 --> 00:02:03,000 Kind of like how Vesa Display HDR tries to let you know 34 00:02:03,000 --> 00:02:09,000 the screen will get up to a certain brightness, even if it might not be real HDR. 35 00:02:09,000 --> 00:02:13,000 Those are for the elites. But sometimes, standards come about as a result 36 00:02:13,000 --> 00:02:16,000 of a smaller number of companies trying to get a leg up 37 00:02:16,000 --> 00:02:19,000 on their competition. This is how Bluetooth originated, 38 00:02:19,000 --> 00:02:22,000 as it was a collaboration between IBM and Ericsson. 39 00:02:22,000 --> 00:02:27,000 Both companies were struggling in the mobile market as IBM's laptops and Ericsson's phones 40 00:02:27,000 --> 00:02:31,000 weren't the hottest sellers. These two companies wanted to work together 41 00:02:31,000 --> 00:02:34,000 to build a cell phone inside of a laptop, 42 00:02:34,000 --> 00:02:37,000 but because this would have been a power hog at the time, 43 00:02:37,000 --> 00:02:40,000 Bluetooth was created to link a phone and a laptop 44 00:02:40,000 --> 00:02:43,000 over short distances. By making Bluetooth an open standard, 45 00:02:43,000 --> 00:02:47,000 they could position their new products as some of the first to incorporate a technology 46 00:02:47,000 --> 00:02:51,000 they hoped would become popular. And that it did. 47 00:02:51,000 --> 00:02:56,000 IBM introduced a ThinkPad in 2001 that became the first Bluetooth-enabled laptop, 48 00:02:56,000 --> 00:03:01,000 while Motorola took advantage of the open standard and introduced Bluetooth to a large portion 49 00:03:01,000 --> 00:03:05,000 of the American cell phone market. Of course, sometimes standards come about as a way 50 00:03:05,000 --> 00:03:09,000 to be anti-consumer as well. HDMI is a good example of this, 51 00:03:09,000 --> 00:03:12,000 which might sound a little strange, as it's pretty convenient. 52 00:03:12,000 --> 00:03:15,000 Before HDMI, you might have needed nine different cables 53 00:03:15,000 --> 00:03:20,000 for an HD picture and surround sound, and now you only need one. 54 00:03:20,000 --> 00:03:23,000 But the goal of HDMI wasn't just to untangle your AV setup. 55 00:03:23,000 --> 00:03:26,000 It was to help content providers prevent copyright infringement 56 00:03:26,000 --> 00:03:30,000 through a baked-in technology called HDCP. 57 00:03:30,000 --> 00:03:34,000 Several competing movie studios were reluctant to release high-def content, 58 00:03:34,000 --> 00:03:38,000 which they viewed as ripe for piracy, without some kind of protection scheme. 59 00:03:38,000 --> 00:03:41,000 Obviously, the company's manufacturing HDMI-enabled hardware 60 00:03:41,000 --> 00:03:44,000 wanted their customers to actually be able to watch 61 00:03:44,000 --> 00:03:47,000 HD content, so companies like Panasonic, Phillips, 62 00:03:47,000 --> 00:03:50,000 and Sony, all of whom competed against each other 63 00:03:50,000 --> 00:03:53,000 in the home theater realm, formed the HDMI Forum, 64 00:03:53,000 --> 00:03:56,000 which today consists of several dozen companies 65 00:03:56,000 --> 00:04:01,000 that help develop the standard to ensure it keeps up with the growing bandwidth needs of ever-higher-res audio 66 00:04:01,000 --> 00:04:04,000 and video, though the HDCP handshake is still far 67 00:04:04,000 --> 00:04:08,000 from a perfect process. I guess we might as well make Try Turning It Off 68 00:04:08,000 --> 00:04:11,000 and Back On Again, an official part of the standard. 69 00:04:11,000 --> 00:04:15,000 That's right, everybody. That was a tech-quickie. 70 00:04:15,000 --> 00:04:18,000 Thanks for watching. Like the video if you liked it. 71 00:04:18,000 --> 00:04:21,000 If you disliked it, it's that one. 72 00:04:21,000 --> 00:04:25,000 Check out our other videos. We'll add comment below with video suggestions, 73 00:04:25,000 --> 00:04:27,000 and don't forget to subscribe and follow.