The Universal Stylus Initiative (USI) introduced this week that it’s established a brand new USI 2.0 open stylus customary, which incorporates new options that may make manner for higher writing experiences on Chromebooks.

An enormous new characteristic for USI 2.0 is wi-fi charging that’s suitable with the newest NFC spec, able to 1-watt charging from suitable smartphones and different units. “The simplicity and ease of use of wireless charging means that consumer adoption will be rapid,” stated Mike McCamon, government director of NFC Forum. NFC charging inside the USI 2.0 customary means extra units can host wi-fi charging for hooked up styli, like how the Apple Pencil 2 costs in opposition to an iPad.

USI know-how is out there on many Chromebook units from Acer, Asus, HP, Lenovo, and extra. The customary gained vital traction amongst producers after Google joined the initiative in 2018 however has not been broadly carried out on units aside from Chromebooks.

The USI customary permits for stylus interoperability between completely different screens and units, a key profit over proprietary applied sciences like Samsung’s S Pen, Apple’s Pencil, and Microsoft’s Surface Pen, all of which might’t be used interchangeably between the units. USI styli additionally don’t require a pairing course of and may retain settings inside the stylus itself. Manufacturers can enroll so as to add assist for brand spanking new or current USI suitable styli just like the Logitech Pen to units.

Now with the brand new USI 2.0 customary, the sorts of screens the know-how works with have expanded to incorporate in-cell screens — extra superior shows that mix the panel and the digitizer into one skinny layer. There’s additionally an expanded colour palette that USI styli can assist: going from 256 to over 16 million colours. Future styli also can have extra tilt / shading performance for higher drawing assist.