News Intel pushes for truly wireless laptops

In theory nothing that can't be done with inductive charging and 60GHz 802.11ad. The only real "challenge" is both integrating that in to laptops as well as possibly some way to easily integrate it in to a mat and/or module you could easily install in to a desk.

The ~7Gbps of 802.11ad is more than enough for high deffinition uncompressed wireless display, gigabit ethernet, USB3 (well, most of USB3). You've got about 3Gbps for the 1080p60 uncompressed, 1Gbps for gigabit ethernet leaving you with around 3Gbps for "USB3" peripherals, which frankly, I doubt too many people are maxing out the 5Gbps of USB3 right now, for a laptop anyway. IIRC 802.11ad might be able to handle even more speed at some point.

Inductive charging isn't overly efficient, but it isn't so terrible that if you are talking a 15-20w budget for a ULT/Broadwell M laptop, it would be infeasible. I don't think you'd want to try a 30-50w inductive charging budget, but 20w should be enough to more or less keep a ULV/ULT/BW-M laptop topped off and charge it while it is sleeping/off.

It would be kind of cool, especially if it was something integrated that I could install in to a desk.

 

This would also allow greater IP ratings on devices- less ports and holes, less connectors to get broken from connecting and disconnecting. Faster docking and un-docking...

I love the idea, even if its just a box that sits on a desk you can make that a laptop stand that raises the screen to an ergonomic position while providing the connectivity.

Bring it on

 

I like the idea, but unless the device is under $70 adoption of the tech will be an uphill battle.

 

On the topic of high power inductive charging- I saw that BMW and Daimler have made one for cars capable of 3.6kWh transfer. If they can scale it up that far surely ~50W can be achieved for laptops.