{"rewrite":{"id":"r_639f3f35a81e412523d88369","clusterId":"c_473957a53fb595e044f8a03d","slug":"ken-kawamoto-releases-power-struggle-a-two-player-game-fought-over-phone-charge","model":"deepseek-v4-1-flash","headline":"Ken Kawamoto Releases Power Struggle, A Two-Player Game Fought Over Phone Charge","summary":"Ken Kawamoto released Power Struggle on October 4. It is a two-player tap game for Android phones joined by a USB-C cable. The side that taps more draws power while the other side's battery drops. Kawamoto says the winning side pulls about 1500mA and the receiving side takes in only about 400mA, with the 1100mA gap likely lost to the game's processing.","whyItMatters":"The game turns USB Power Delivery's role-swapping into a losing proposition for both players, since the charge that moves between the two phones is smaller than what the app itself burns.","webCardHtml":"\u003cp\u003ePlaying it needs more than two phones and a cable. Swapping the power-supplying role calls for permissions Android does not hand to ordinary apps, so players install Shizuku to run the system command dumpsys usb set-port-roles. The phone running Shizuku becomes the host and sends data to the other over Android Open Accessory mode.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eKawamoto is a staff software engineer at Google and has built hardware-and-software experiments before, among them tempescope, which reproduces weather inside a box. Power Struggle is published on GitHub, and his own account of the power draw suggests a mobile battery is the better answer.\u003c/p\u003e","blueskyPost":"Power Struggle's stated 1100mA gap between what the winner draws and what the loser receives puts most of the power loss in the game's own processing, not the USB-C link.","twitterPost":"Ken Kawamoto's Power Struggle sends 1500mA to the winner and 400mA to the loser. The missing 1100mA is the game's own overhead.","threadsPost":"Ken Kawamoto's Power Struggle runs on two phones linked by one USB-C cable, and he says the winner pulls 1500mA while the loser receives 400mA. That 1100mA gap means the game burns more power in processing than the loser's phone ever gets.","newsletterBlurb":"Ken Kawamoto released Power Struggle on October 4, a two-player Android tap game in which two phones connected by USB-C fight over charge. The side that taps more draws power; the other side's battery decreases. Kawamoto says the supplying side runs at about 1500mA while the receiving side takes in only about 400mA, and he suspects the 1100mA gap goes to the game's processing. Installing it requires Shizuku to run a system command that swaps the USB port roles.","attributionJson":"[{\"source\":\"Automaton\",\"url\":\"https://automaton-media.com/articles/newsjp/20261005-471840/\",\"title\":\"Game 'Power Struggle' Where Players Fight Over Smartphone Charge Draws Attention. Charging Efficiency Is Quite Poor, a Pointless 'Ugly Battle'\"}]","lintFlagsJson":null,"lintHits":0,"costUsd":0,"inputTokens":4571,"outputTokens":623,"status":"published","repairAttempts":0,"nextRepairAt":null,"factsAttemptedAt":1791197966,"createdAt":"2026-10-05T10:54:52.000Z","publishedAt":"2026-10-05T10:58:22.000Z","updatedAt":"2026-10-05T10:58:22.000Z"},"cluster":{"id":"c_473957a53fb595e044f8a03d","canonicalTitle":"スマホの充電を奪い合うゲーム『Power Struggle』に注目集まる。充電効率はだいぶ悪い、不毛すぎる“醜い戦い”","representativeArticleId":"a_df6e908bf769a4ea1d3b34bc","sourceCount":1,"writtenSourceCount":1,"writeAttempts":0,"isSolo":true,"entitiesJson":"{\"anime_titles\":[],\"manga_titles\":[],\"work_titles\":[\"Power Struggle\"],\"studios\":[],\"people\":[\"Ken Kawamoto\"],\"type\":\"news\",\"domain\":\"games\",\"is_roundup\":false}","contentType":"news","status":"published","firstSeenAt":"2026-10-05T07:01:50.000Z","lastSeenAt":"2026-10-05T07:01:50.000Z","updatedAt":"2026-10-05T10:58:22.000Z"},"attribution":[{"source":"Automaton","url":"https://automaton-media.com/articles/newsjp/20261005-471840/","title":"スマホの充電を奪い合うゲーム『Power Struggle』に注目集まる。充電効率はだいぶ悪い、不毛すぎる“醜い戦い”"}],"entities":{"anime_titles":[],"manga_titles":[],"work_titles":["Power Struggle"],"studios":[],"people":["Ken Kawamoto"],"type":"news","domain":"games","is_roundup":false},"keyFacts":null}