[s_dev]

>Never heard of them.

We had an argument in a CS class once about what the most "pervasive technology" in the room was. We were examining claims that "computing would become so pervasive and ubiquitous that it would become invisible" like electricity and that zipper.

The reason it won was because we could count more of them than any other piece of tech in the room. Every person had more than they thought -- often as many as half a dozen between their pants and schoolbag.

[hammock]

The thing about zippers is, YKK is hands down the best and most reliable zipper. Yes I know there are types of zippers, metal coil, molded plastic etc- YKK makes the best of each.

Plenty of companies try to source their own (Levi's is the first to come to mind), but the best companies all use YKK zippers because they know. If it doesn't say YKK on it, it's not a YKK zipper.

[jschwartzi]

YKK also has a lot of imitators. I recently saw an "HKK" zipper on a cheap piece of clothing from Amazon, for example.

[int_19h]

The companies also use it because their customers know. Not only YKK succeeded in making itself the most trusted brand, but they also succeeded in informing the end users of complete products that there is an important practical difference they must to pay attention to.

ITW Nexus did something similar with fasteners.

[agumonkey]

and it may only be the beginning.. application class SoC can fit in a microusb plug.. I think some people hacked some arduino like chip in the wire itself (granted it was not as thin as a normal cable)