Sick of rearranging the power strip to make everything fit? Annoyed by the way a slightly-to-wide plug can take up more than its fair share of space partially covering one (or even two) other slots? Or frustrated with the fact that some cords come straight out while others bend sharply in some random direction?

This slider-style socket idea (in this case rendered by Chen Yinfeng) is actually not brand new. In fact, variants on the core idea date back decades to designs that either failed on the safety front or simply had issues with securing plugs – still, while it might not have worked back then, new materials and internal regulations make this a prime candidate for inventing anew.

Obviously, there are still issues to be solved: like how to accommodate plugs that have non-parallel prongs set at odd angles, or work with two versus three-prong plug tips and so forth. Still, in a world where manufacturers still seem unable to standardize their cord systems something like this might help reduce the hassle of connecting cords if a few fundamental design problems could be addressed.