Belkin 5ft. Lightning to USB-A Cable + Strap, Silver

A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, and others worldwide. Its name in English is a (pronounced AY), plural aes.

It is similar in shape to the Ancient Greek letter alpha, from which it derives. The uppercase version consists of the two slanting sides of a triangle, crossed in the middle by a horizontal bar. The lowercase version is often written in one of two forms: the double-storey |a| and single-storey |ɑ|. The latter is commonly used in handwriting and fonts based on it, especially fonts intended to be read by children, and is also found in italic type.

In English, a is the indefinite article, with the alternative form an.

Belkin International, Inc., is an American consumer electronics company headquartered in El Segundo, California. It produces mobile and computer connectivity devices and peripherals for consumer and commercial use. These include wireless chargers, power banks, charging cables, data cables, audio and video adapters, headphones, earbuds, screen protectors and cases, surge protectors, docking stations and data hubs, secure KVM switches and network cables.

Lightning is a natural phenomenon consisting of electrostatic discharges occurring through the atmosphere between two electrically charged regions. One or both regions are within the atmosphere, with the second region sometimes occurring on the ground. Following the lightning, the regions become partially or wholly electrically neutralized.

Lightning involves a near-instantaneous release of energy on a scale averaging between 200 megajoules and 7 gigajoules. The air around the lightning flash rapidly heats to temperatures of approximately 30,000°C. There is an emission of electromagnetic radiation across a wide range of wavelengths, some visible as a bright flash. Lightning also causes thunder, a sound from the shock wave which develops as heated gases in the vicinity of the discharge experience a sudden increase in pressure.

The most common occurrence of a lightning event is known as a thunderstorm, though they can also commonly occur in other types of energetic weather systems, such as volcanic eruptions. Lightning influences the global atmospheric electrical circuit and atmospheric chemistry and is a natural ignition source of wildfires. Lightning is considered an Essential Climate Variable by the World Meteorological Organisation, and its scientific study is called fulminology.

Silver is a chemical element; it has symbol Ag (from Latin argentum 'silver', derived from Proto-Indo-European *h₂erǵ 'shiny, white') and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal. Silver is found in the Earth's crust in the pure, free elemental form ("native silver"), as an alloy with gold and other metals, and in minerals such as argentite and chlorargyrite. Most silver is produced as a byproduct of copper, gold, lead, and zinc refining. Silver is a naturally occurring element. It is found in the environment combined with other elements such as sulfide, chloride, and nitrate. Pure silver is “silver” colored, but silver nitrate and silver chloride are powdery white and silver sulfide and silver oxide are dark-gray to black. Silver is often found as a by-product during the retrieval of copper, lead, zinc, and gold ores.

Silver has long been valued as a precious metal. Silver metal is used in many bullion coins, sometimes alongside gold: while it is more abundant than gold, it is much less abundant as a native metal. Its purity is typically measured on a per-mille basis; a 94%-pure alloy is described as "0.940 fine". As one of the seven metals of antiquity, silver has had an enduring role in most human cultures.

Other than in currency and as an investment medium (coins and bullion), silver is used in solar panels, water filtration, jewellery, ornaments, high-value tableware and utensils (hence the term "silverware"), in electrical contacts and conductors, in specialised mirrors, window coatings, in catalysis of chemical reactions, as a colorant in stained glass, and in specialised confectionery. Its compounds are used in photographic and X-ray film. Dilute solutions of silver nitrate and other silver compounds are used as disinfectants and microbiocides (oligodynamic effect), added to bandages, wound-dressings, catheters, and other medical instruments.

A strap, sometimes also called strop, is an elongated flap or ribbon, usually of leather or other flexible materials.

Thin straps are used as part of clothing or baggage, or bedding such as a sleeping bag. See for example spaghetti strap, shoulder strap. A strap differs from a belt mainly in that a strap is usually integral to the item of clothing; either can be used in combination with buckles.

Straps are also used as fasteners to attach, secure, carry, or bind items, to objects, animals (for example a saddle on a horse) and people (for example a watch on a wrist), or even to tie down people and animals, as on an apparatus for corporal punishment. Occasionally a strap is specified after what it binds or holds, e.g. chin strap. Webbing is a particular type of strap that is a strong fabric woven as a flat strip or tube that is also often used in place of rope. Modern webbing is typically made from exceptionally high-strength material and is used in automobile seat belts, furniture manufacturing, transportation, towing, military uniform, cargo fasteners, and many other fields.

Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard, developed by USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF), that allows data exchange and delivery of power between many types of electronics. It specifies its architecture, in particular its physical interface, and communication protocols for data transfer and power delivery to and from hosts, such as personal computers, to and from peripheral devices, e.g. displays, keyboards, and mass storage devices, and to and from intermediate hubs, which multiply the number of a host's ports.

Introduced in 1996, USB was originally designed to standardize the connection of peripherals to computers, replacing various interfaces such as serial ports, parallel ports, game ports, and ADB ports. Early versions of USB became commonplace on a wide range of devices, such as keyboards, mice, cameras, printers, scanners, flash drives, smartphones, game consoles, and power banks. USB has since evolved into a standard to replace virtually all common ports on computers, mobile devices, peripherals, power supplies, and manifold other small electronics.

In the current standard, the USB-C connector replaces the many various connectors for power (up to 240 W), displays (e.g. DisplayPort, HDMI), and many other uses, as well as all previous USB connectors.

As of 2024, USB consists of four generations of specifications: USB 1.x, USB 2.0, USB 3.x, and USB4. USB4 enhances the data transfer and power delivery functionality with

... a connection-oriented tunneling architecture designed to combine multiple protocols onto a single physical interface so that the total speed and performance of the USB4 Fabric can be dynamically shared.

USB4 particularly supports the tunneling of the Thunderbolt 3 protocols, namely PCI Express (PCIe, load/store interface) and DisplayPort (display interface). USB4 also adds host-to-host interfaces.

Each specification sub-version supports different signaling rates from 1.5 and 12 Mbit/s half-duplex in USB 1.0/1.1 to 80 Gbit/s full-duplex in USB4 2.0. USB also provides power to peripheral devices; the latest versions of the standard extend the power delivery limits for battery charging and devices requiring up to 240 watts as defined in USB Power Delivery (USB-PD) Rev. V3.1. Over the years, USB(-PD) has been adopted as the standard power supply and charging format for many mobile devices, such as mobile phones, reducing the need for proprietary chargers.