So much of our online and technological lives rely on standards, the sets of rules designed to make sure our favorite gadgets and services work together. At their best, they make everything work seamlessly, and we never need to worry about what’s happening behind the scenes. But at their wor st, they leave us perplexed about why our new stuff just won’t work — and wondering how we could make it better. In this special issue from The Verge, we explore the way specs and protocols affect our productivity and passions — from the promise of a more efficient streaming video codec, to the power of the watt as a way to understand our gadgets, to our perpetual frustration with Micro USB. These are the ways specs and standards run our digital lives. Nintendo has moved beyond specs When will physical video games go away? How to calculate your home battery needs for the next blackout Why the watt is the most important spec in battery-powered devices ...read more read less