SendStation's PocketDock, available now, is incredibly tiny, having "the same footprint as Apple's iPod plug," and features a 3.5mm jack in addition to the miniUSB. The 3.5mm jack lets you bypass the volume board used by the headphone jack, giving you clearer sound quality, just like a dock. It's pretty simple, and a little expensive at $30, but if you use a ton of miniUSB gadgets, it'll be worth it. [SendStation]

SendStation releases tiny PocketDock Line Out Mini USB adapter for iPod

Frankfurt/Main, Germany - August 25, 2009

SendStation Systems today released the world's smallest Mini USB-to-iPod adapter with integrated Line Out jack: the brand-new PocketDock Line Out Mini USB.

Mini USB has become the connectivity standard for portable electronic devices and the latest addition to the PocketDock family of iPod & iPhone adapters addresses that: now you can sync & charge your iPod or iPhone using the same cables, wall or car chargers found with digital cameras, portable hard drives, GPS devices, PDAs and many more. Additionally the integrated 1/8" (3.5 mm) Line Out jack offers pristine audio quality for connecting the iPod or iPhone to your home or car stereo or DJ equipment.

"This is the best PocketDock we've ever created", says SendStation's President André Klein. "Not only did we further improve our already known, excellent built-quality, but we were also able to shrink the size by an incredible 66% over our existing USB Line Out model."

The new PocketDock Line Out Mini USB comes in black color, weighs merely 4 grams and with 7 by 25.5 mm has the same footprint as Apple's iPod plug, thus fits through the dock connector opening of any case. Like all SendStation accessories with 30-pin dock connector, it is "Made for iPod" certified.

SendStation has also redesigned the included set of slim audio cables: the RCA (Cinch) plugs feature a flattened top to accept the thumb, which, by slightly turning while pulling, helps to unplug them easily.

For additional info visit www.sendstation.com.

Pricing & Availability

The SendStation PocketDock Line Out Mini USB is immediately available from SendStation Systems at www.sendstation.com and from authorized dealers worldwide. Suggested retail price across Europe is EUR 29.95, respectively USD 29.95 in the US and the rest of the world.

Apparently it's not just an either/or scenario. The cable can simultaneously charge a mini-USB device and transfer photos to your hard drive. Plus if microSD is more your speed, there's a version for that, too.

Either cable will cost you $12. [Brando via CrunchGear]

The main driving force behind the Commission's campaign is the reduction of e-waste, which is sensible. After all, a proprietary charger generally dies with its chargee, which seems like a waste. Surprisingly, cellphone manufacturers appear to be relatively eager to comply. The GSM Association announced today that 17 manufacturers, including Nokia, Motorola and Samsung have agreed on miniMicro-USB as the standard—following a (to date hollow) precedent set by others nearly two years ago.

Micro-USB in cellphones as been trending up anyway, and seems like a sensible choice. Accordingly, it's not really surprising to see companies like Samsung and Motorola agree to a standard that they already sometimes use, or for others to switch to a standard that, while it cuts lucrative charger sales, makes things simpler and cheaper in the long run. The real challenge for the commission will be to convince companies like Apple to join in—not they they'll necessarily have a choice. UPDATE: AFP says the standard in mini USB, but the GSMA press release confirms that it's micro-usb. [AFP]

USB Type A Universal Serial Bus, the gold standard. The whole idea behind it is that this one interface will connect everything (except the stuff it doesn't), killing off the old guard, like parallel and serial ports. It moves data, and in the case of USB 2.0—which is pretty much the standard now—it does it faster, and with some extra specs for power. Clarification: USB 2.0 adds in the Battery Charging specification 1.0, which allows for dedicated charging and other power goodness. This particular connector is the type A variety. It plugs everything from your iPod to your digital camera into a computer, or whatever else. If you haven't seen this before, what are you reading this on?

USB Type B The USB Type B plug is basically a USB connector for peripherals—you've probably seen it jacked into a printer or scanner.

Mini USB It's a type of USB connector for smaller devices like cameras and phones—it takes up less real estate than a port for a Type A connection, obviously.

Micro USB Even smaller than the above Mini USB. Since it's, like, even smaller, we're starting to see it adopted by LG, Motorola and others—hopefully this is the last time they all switch power adapters on us, till wireless power makes adapters unnecessary. Update: Better pic via Mobile Burn.

IEEE 1394 (aka FireWire) An alternative to USB, Apple popularized the IEEE 1394 interface as FireWire (Sony called it i.LINK). You're probably most familiar with it on a digital camcorder (or an old school iPod), since it's really speedy for data transfers. You're looking at the four- and six-pin versions of FireWire 400. The six-pin version delivers power, the four-pin version (originally favored by Sony) doesn't.

FireWire 800 A revised, faster version of FireWire introduced in 2003, it doesn't use the same connectors as the original, making it rare for non pros—and an unnecessary pain the ass.

RJ45 The kind of plug you're used to seeing on the end of a Category 5, Cat5 enhanced or Cat6 (commonly known as Ethernet) cable, which is plugged into your router or computer's networking port. Cat5e is an update to Cat5 that supports faster Gigabit Ethernet. Cat6 is the next-gen standard that will handle speeds twice as fast as Cat5e, and has stricter rules about noise and crosstalk. Interestingly, the most recently approved IEEE 1394 spec (aka FireWire S800T) uses RJ45 connectors as well.

eSATA External Serial ATA is a branch off of the Serial ATA interface that connects your hard drive to your computer if it was put together in the last couple of years. As you can guess from the name, the difference is it's an external port, but it delivers the same insane data transfer speeds as the hookup to your hard drive. Faster than USB or FireWire, it's basically for external hard drives for quicker data transfers. You'll be seeing it more as more laptops include a port for it, usually one that can also be used with USB. There's even talk of bus-powered eSATA coming in the next year or two.

HDMI High-Definition Multimedia Interface is another one of those "it'll connect everything except all the stuff it doesn't" deals, but for high-definition audio and video. It basically replaces DVI (see below) plus S-Video and all that other analog crap. Laptops, desktops and even high-end cameras and other gadgets are getting HDMI. Besides fat bandwidth, another benefit is control: The Consumer Electronics Control (CEC) profile already lets machines send commands to other products over HDMI—that or something like it could be very useful in the PC space, too.

DVI The digital successor to VGA, Digital Visual Interface is a video connection you'll most likely see dealing with computers or computer monitors, at least until they're all replaced by HDMI. Older HDTVs have DVI ports too. It can have a few different pin arrangements, depending on whether it carries a digital (DVI-D) or analog (DVI-A) signal or both (DVI-I, for integrated). The analog deal on some types is to make them easy to adapt for use with a VGA monitor, but it's less and less noteworthy. There's also a dual-link version that carries more data for high-res displays. These are helpfully depicted at Wikipedia.

Mini and Micro DVI are dumb, shrunken, Apple-only versions of DVI. Why dumb? Because they're essentially proprietary formats. HDMI will make them obsolete before long.

DisplayPort is the newest video interface on the block, and its plane of existence is basically in the computer-to-monitor realm only. It's not even close to mainstream yet, but Dell is backing it, among others, so you might wanna know it. It can carry a whole lot of data, but it's got DRM built into the spec, so it's a double-edged sword. Update: Swapped pic out with a better one.

That's enough cable to strangle most of California, but by all means feel free to add in your own cable trivia down in the comments.

Something you still wanna know? Send any questions about cables, plugs, holes, bird or bees to tips@gizmodo.com, with "Giz Explains" in the subject line.

The Price: $49.99

The Verdict: The Ci70 is a good typer, but you'll want this for the mini USB convenience. If you're a person that often syncs your digital cameras, smartphones or portable hard drives to your PC, you probably have a lot of mini USB cables. The Ci70 lets you ditch all those cables and just use one embedded into a slideable, hidden compartment that you can never lose. Ultra convenient.

The keys feel very much like the Kensington Slim Type Keyboard, but this time has both the Windows key and the Apple Command key on one unit instead of making two separate models for each type of machine. It's also fairly quiet and has laptop-ish (scissor switch) keys.

The only complaint we have are because of its slightly condensed size (Kensington says it's 35% "smaller"), which, like the Kensington Slim Types, place the Home/Page Up/Page Down/End keys vertically to the right of the Enter key. The same scrunched design also make the arrow keys smaller than usual and harder to hit. Other than these fairly minor issues, it's a pleasure to type on and almost ranks as high as Apple's aluminum keyboards in our book.

At $49.99, the Ci70 is a great keyboard for people who are looking for a quiet, soft typing experience and the convenience of not having to dig around for a mini USB cable. [Kensington]

The standard USB-capable version costs you $34.99, but the $44.99 version will come with an iPod tip that supports the nano, the nini, 4G, 5G, and the iPhone. There's even a bundle with mini USB chargers for BlackBerry, Motorola, and Windows Mobile phones for the same price. If you're looking for both, then $49.99 Power Executive Bundle should satisfy.

Product Page [InFlightPower via MacWorld]

The P970 should be shipping Q3 2006 in various pigments to match Motorola's ever-widening array of RAZR and PEBL colors. – Jason Chen

Motorola moots USB rechargeable phone recharger [Reg Hardware]