I thought whichever one is plugged in second is the one that receives the charge, but it may be vice versa. Either way, it's the order of plugging that matters.
Does a device even know that it's connected to a ded cable? I'd imagine that it's only after you plug in the second device that they both suddenly see they're being connected to something.
I believe that some cables (especially conversion cables) can have some sort of processor. I have no idea if that's the case with USB-C cables, though.
How can devices determine if a cable is plugged in without a device on the other end? Difference in resistance?
I'm not sure how it works in reality but in principle the cable could act like a jumper across two contacts on the computer's USB connector.
Not all cables have chips in them, only things like high-power (5A) cables need a chip. A basic 3A USB-C cable will not have any chip.
Is there really nothing standard about USB-C?
They’ve done a stellar job of standardising the name. So many different cables & capabilities, one standardised name.
If you wait long enough they'll try to rename WiFi as USB-C somehow
Does USB-C suffer from the problems with interference that USB 3 did?
Perhaps that could be harnessed into something more productive.
If there are two ground pins in the connector and the cable shorts those two ground pins, the connector could use the presence of continuity between those two ground pins to know a cable is plugged in but not connected to another device. Something like that.