The smartest of smartphones are getting HDMI connections to plug into your TV, but just about everything has a micro USB port.
The MHL consortium including Nokia, Samsung, Sony, Toshiba and Silicon Image - if it doesn't stand for micro USB HDMI link, it ought to - uses a micro USB to HDMI cable that charges your phone when you plug it into your TV to play video (1080p with audio) or photos, which is such a neat and obvious combination we're surprised no-one has done it before.
New devices from this summer will have the protocol built in and adapters will make it work for devices that already have the connectors – which should be the vast majority of devices.
The equally impressive HDBaseT protocol won't be easy to retrofit, but it's already in professional video equipment and it should be in some TVs, projectors and AV receivers this year. Sony, LG and Samsung are the founding members of a spec we think actually deserves the overused 'revolutionary' compliment.
You can already get power over Ethernet, or a network connection over power cables, or video and audio over USB (we saw demos of 1080p video at 60fps over USB 3), or USB over DisplayPort (look for USB 3 cables that are the 15m length of DisplayPort rather than 3m later this year when Icron's chipsets start getting built in to screens, PCs and USB hubs).
DBaseT does it all, putting power, network, sound, video and USB connections over a single Ethernet cable that can be up to 100m long.
http://www.techradar.com/news/world-of- ... 011-921980Much more at the link
