Everyone with a phone has at least one charger for it. If you travel or work long hours, you may have an extra charger or two. Those can often be thrown in the trash if you get a new phone since it will likely require a different charger. A proposed universal charger could eliminate that problem.If you constantly buy phones from one device maker, such as Apple or HTC, there is a good chance a charger from one of their phones will work with another. That is a good thing since you don't have to throw away old chargers, but bad in that every time you buy a new phone, you are having to pay for a charger you don't need.

While your phone comes with one charger, many people have to invest more money to buy a new car charger, a new charger for the office and even one for their travel bag. Families with multiple phones have the same issues, just magnified by the number of phones they have.

When chargers are thrown away, they just take up space in land fills. There has to be a better way.

The International Electrotechnical Commission has proposed a single charger for smartphones. While compliance is voluntary, Apple, Motorola Mobility, Qualcomm, Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson have agreed to it. It will be based on the micro-USB connector that has been out for a year or so for several phones. While the current connector is physically the same it doesn't mean can charge any phone it can be plugged into. The new charger would rectify that.

I probably have a dozen chargers from various devices and phones so this is welcome news for me. I could have just one charger per location. Imagine going on vacation with your family and not having a tangled mess of chargers where one would do the trick.

Now, what are the chances that phone manufacturers will agree on a universal battery?