Sorry, I was thinking like an engineer. China will start selling these gizmos soon, but you will have no way to tell if they are trustworthy. That’s why it behooves you to build it yourself.
Learning how resistors work, and how to solder, are two endeavors that will improve your outlook on life.
This. It’s critical to understand that Stuxnet did not spread itself via USB - it spread itself via autorun, which is one of the stupidest security problems that we’ve invented. It also spread itself via the LNK vulnerability, which was another bone-headed automatic execution of untrusted code. USB was not at fault, but rather broken software that blindly executed whatever it was given.
I cannot understand why anyone leaves autorun enabled.
We’ll see, probably depends on how active the physical exploit scene gets. By way of example, the picture that Cory posted shows at least five bidirectional interfaces to the host system (The USB 2.0 and USB 3, which may or may not do something stupid automatically when a device is plugged in), the i2c DDC lines in the VGA port (a usually neglected feature, if the sheer lousiness of monitors and TVs are anything to go by; but the kernel-privileged graphics drivers listen to it… Potential there). You’ve also got the Displayport AUX channel, and (since that’s a dual-mode displayport) a simple adapter can convince it to provide DVI/HDMI DDC and HDMI CEC interfaces. Depending on whether it’s a dual-mode 1 or 1.1 it may have a few additional HDMI features lurking in there.
It would be a… pity… if something were to happen inside the VGA hookup plate at the podium that everybody trustingly uses to connect to the projector, wouldn’t it?
You’ve really thought this through… Remind me to never borrow any electronic from you! 
" the ability to safely wire and re-wire room lighting and other low-power applications without an electrician’s help. "
Only if you want to run a separate, individual wire to every fixture.
Besides, there’s already a solution for this that is much more robust – a Herman Miller product called Convia which is not only modular but includes smart power management.
Just put a switch over each port.
Charge Only / Charge & Data.
Flip to charge only when necessary and vice versa.
if you don’t know if a certain brand of condom is trustworthy, then you double wrap 
Ha! I wondered about that statement, since you can do that already. In fact, if you look behind my desk, you’ll see how us plebs rewire lighting and other low power applications using those things called extension cords.
“if you can’t charge your laptop without connecting it to an untrusted data-source, there’s some crazy shenanigan potential.”
Fortunately, it’s unlikely that the there would be any requirement to connect to a data source instead of power source that happens to have the same basic specs.
You know, like I currently plug the USB cable for my phone into a small power block rather than whatever computer happens to be present…
On Windows 7 Home Premium it involved editing the registry by adding a setting to it. Is the average user willing to try that?
As someone who fixes computer problems there are a lot of people who just don’t understand how their computers work. If it doesn’t connect to the internet, or they can’t get to their e-mail, they’re lost.
Why would anyone trust someone calling from “Windows”? Then after software is surreptitiously placed on their computer, give their credit card number to the person who locked the computer? I hope that when that person has finally brought the computer to me for repair that they haven’t tried to “fix” it themselves.
It depends, doesn’t it? As fluorescent lights burn out, the strobing and noise can be incredibly painful.
This actually strikes me as an attempt to standardise on USB as a better DC charging/power medium. It’s clearly happened in phones and other low power devices. One might imaging a laptop having it’s power brick with only a USB socket on it, but the laptop itself offering no power.
I’ve wanted for ages to have my house wired with low voltage DC, and this seems to be a plausible solution.
Sounds like a great idea for Kickstarter to me. Something that plugs into a USB port on the computer that presents a MagSafe like female connector and some other piece you stick on the USB cable that makes it like a male MagSafe like connector. Add in the USB condom features for good measure.
Kinda like this
I got a cheap-o Bluetooth headset with built-in rechargeable battery and a two-wire USB charging cable, and guess what? I can’t charge it from my Mac because the mac USB hub notices that there is no power request handshake and turns the port off after 10 seconds. My Lenovo, on the otherhand is completely insouciant and happily charges the thing. It’s like I have to use a cheap-o computer to charge the cheap-o headset.
No. Where did you get the idea that low-frequency transformers would be used?
Anyways, the tiny transformer used would be about the size of the step-down transformer used in any typical AC-DC power supply that you have. It would simply not have the additional losses.
Also, if you are clever, you won’t need a transformer at all. You just set up a big enough string of LEDs (assuming that a negative biased LED won’t be fried at that voltage–which reading from consumer blogs doesn’t appear to be an issue (in Europe or other 240V places, you might still need a transformer)).
Here is a discussion of AC LED lighting:
So? Why is that a concern? What we care about is efficient use of energy, not the utilization factor of the component. If it takes twice as many LEDs and if LEDs are cheap (which they are), then why would it matter?
There will be no noise or strobing with LEDs. They simply fail.
Obviously you wouldn’t wire a whole house with low voltage DC (unless you’re doing off grid solar or something), but you could have a AC to DC conversion at the outlet. Consider that LED lighting requires an on-board power supply to provide 2-3V DC; having USB power in the wall could reduce LED lighting costs without loss of efficiency. Ditto everything else with a wall wart power supply that draws <100W.
Eventually I assume we’ll switch everything to (not low voltage, obviously) DC for both convenience and efficiency, but int meantime I think a mix of from-the-wall voltage options could be very useful.
