Google has become a partner of the Universal Stylus Initiative (USI) that could result in just one stylus being needed for all your touchscreen devices.

At present, different manufacturers produce different electronic pens, such as the Samsung S Pen and Microsoft's Surface Pen, which don't work on rival devices. The USI proposes a single open standard, however, which would be adopted by multiple manufacturers and software developers in order to create writing devices that work across multiple phones, tablets and laptops.

Google's decision to join the initiative means that it could supply a stylus that works with its Pixel phones and Chrome OS notebooks. And, as other partners include Intel, Lenovo, Wacom and many more, it should also connect to their products too.

The USI tech is different to that adopted by many other styli on the market. It features two-way communication, between the pen and the device, in order to keep the connection between the two more stable. Others only have one-way communication, from the stylus to the device, which can be prone to losing connection when other signals, from nearby phones and the like, are conflicting.

Whether Google's involvement could ultimately mean Pixel phones come with an included stylus is unclear. However, considering the popularity of Samsung's Galaxy Note series, it would make a lot of sense for at least the Pixel 3 XL to have a G-Pen or some other such accessory.