A new pedal standard for connecting pedals using IR transmitters and receivers. Pedals would have a transmitter on the left and a receiver on the right. If you set them down next to each other, they will automatically bind without the need of a cable. Or, they could bind depending on the order that you turn them on.

IR transceivers are low power, plentiful, cheap, and hi fidelity.

This would solve a lot of problems with laying out pedalboards and would reduce sources of electrical interference. You could build them into pedals and you could also make transmitter/receiver pairs that could plug into older pedals. They could be powered by button cell batteries, or they could be recharged by plugging them into a recharger. You could actually just have 1/4 in. jacks in the recharger and plug them into that.