Technology companies are edging us ever nearer to a wireless, cable-free future

Images have emerged on the 9to5Mac website that purport to show the forthcoming version of Apple's MacBook Air with a solitary USB type-C port

With Christmas trees slung in skips and New Year fitness regimes abandoned as quickly as they were drawn up, let's briefly turn our attention to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas for a glimpse of a more exciting tomorrow.

One preposterously glitzy product launch, faintly reminiscent of a Hollywood awards ceremony, alerted us to the very latest in dishwasher technology – but a quieter revolution was taking place elsewhere, as a new connector was shown off by the USB Implementers Forum. (Stay with me on this, it's more exciting than the dishwasher.)

Operating at the new USB 3.1 standard, the new type-C connector transfers stuff twice as fast as current USB connectors (up to 10Gb per second), can deliver 100W of power and, praise be, is reversible. You can insert it either way up. Yes, you can plug it in successfully, in the dark, after a few drinks. Now, that's technological advancement. A group of engineers from the world's biggest technology firms have been working on it for some time – including, perhaps surprisingly, a team from Apple.

A company known for its enthusiasm for proprietary technology, Apple would have generated little surprise by delivering gadgets this year equipped with new connectors named things such as Breakneck, Nimble or Ziptastic, all of which would require us to part with cash for new cables and adapters.

But images that have recently emerged on the 9to5Mac website show what purports to be a forthcoming version of the MacBook Air with a solitary USB type-C port. Aside from a headphone jack on the opposite side, that's it. No MagSafe power port; USB handles that. No video out; USB handles that too. Everything flows through this one tiny connector – which is amazing, but of course people are angry. Apple has a habit of forcing change, and change can be infuriating.

For many years, more ports just meant better. You could plug more stuff in. And that's still the case with some technology; the back of any modern television is like a palace of connectivity with more holes than a golf resort.

But we're being nudged towards a wireless, cable-free future. Think of all the things that used to require cables that now don't, necessarily: keyboards, mice, headphones, printers, backup drives, video mirroring and much more. With cloud-based software packages continually thrust in our faces, many of us can go for weeks without plugging anything into our laptops except for the power cord and an occasional flash drive. But we're used to that row of connectors, and when they disappear it's a wrench. "What if I want to power the laptop while also plugging something in?" people wailed, not imagining for a second that this might already have been thought of. Maybe the power brick will contain a variety of extra ports. Or maybe the whole thing is just a rumour.

But it's a rumour that makes some kind of sense. It finally delivers a standard, a tiny connector that's exceptionally powerful.

Yes, it would mean saying goodbye to bags of connectors and cables for all manner of unforeseen situations, but that's no hardship. Far from being a nightmarish example of form over function, the rumoured MacBook Air would, in all likelihood, deliver exceptional function for the majority of people who, after all, rarely want to hang high-powered peripherals off their computer. They just want to be able to stick a USB cable into it successfully. In the dark. After a few drinks.