This system already delivers 60W, which is far more than a phone needs to charge. Yes, it would add bulk, but how much? If you can integrate the coils needed for charging into a thin sticker on the inside of the case (like an RFID tag), the electronics beyond that won't take up too much space. If you can fit all you need into a single IC, there would be no problem fitting this into a cell phone. They have electrical outlets on trains and in cafes here. It's a service that they're happy to provide. You could easily turn the power down so that it's too weak for a neighbour to mooch. Some people wouldn't care that their neighbours were stealing power anyway - a phone charger takes a trivial amount of power when compared to the requirements of a cooker or a lightbulb. Just because you can produce an example of a completely different product not working doesn't mean this won't. Cordless phones are incredibly popular. It'd be really useful not to have to replace the handset on its charging stand. If this technology develops to be cheaper than batteries (which is feasible given that phone batteries still cost $5+ even after years of cost-cutting and refinement), then it makes sense to use it in cordless phones regardless of if people 'need' it or not. Nobody 'needs' a tv remote, but they're damn useful. I'd buy a cordless mouse if i knew i'd never have to change its batteries.
Placing an iron core perpendicularly through the coil would focus the beams quite a bit. Oh, I mean: maybee yu shood koncider a kore off eyeorn two bedder fokus them makgnotic feelds a beet strawngor. beecauze dat wud make that strawngor? CEE WAT I meen, Oh, yea, it haz two bee ore-einted in a purpindikyoulor ore-eintition four it two wurk.
I saw a small table that if you set your cell phone or ipod.... it would charge it without wires, which was pretty cool
Yeah, powered wirelessly, with the device plugged into the wall, less efficient and may aswell just use a cable...
I could see this sort of technology becoming very prevalent for charging small electronics, like cell phones and laptops - just leave it on the table/desk/whatever, and it recharges. For bigger things, like desktops, what's the point? It takes me enough time to set up monitors, speakers, mouse, and keyboard that the added thirty seconds to plug it into the wall is basically negligible. There's also a question of efficiency - 90% efficiency on the five watts to charge a PDA's battery is one thing, 90% efficiency on the 500+ watts a high powered desktop consumes adds up rather quickly. At the extreme, I'd be very worried about powering a big speaker system wirelessly - ten-fifteen kilowatts is a lot of energy to be throwing around through the air, I'd be more than a little worried about problems with EMI, random objects starting to induct, and the massive magnetic fields we're talking about producing. My watch has a big steel case, I'd really rather not have it ripped off my wrist by my power source.
Stuey - that's not how you make a high-gain antenna. Stickeh - have you considered that using a mobile phone uses a lot more energy than a landline? And a wireless mouse uses a lot more energy than a wired one? Using a remote for your tv uses more energy than having a knob on the front of the tv. It's all about convenience. Techno-Dann, yes, obviously this would only be for gadgets. As I said, it's about convenience.
The operating frequency is around 10MHz. Interesting things happen at VHF, including iron cores melting...
I didn't say anything about high gain antennas. All I said was that, to centralize the magentic field lines better could be accomplished by placing an iron core into the coil, transformer-core style. If this technology could be developed, and if it becomes popular, it will probably only be available to portable electronics and the such.
That article is MUCH more detailed than the original one linked to in the OP. The OP throws magnetic induction and acoustic resonance around comparing them to each other, the one you linked to mentions 10MHz, and goes into detail regarding the "resonance" charging effect. I still stand by my opinion that the author of the linked-to article likely failed to take high school physics. The 2007 article clears all that up, though. At 10MHz, the "charging" element might heat up enough to be used as a heating element, similar to the new induction stovetops coming out.
An issue I see though is with lithium ion batteries having a "memory" For instance, just because my cell phone is on the table, does not mean I need to be charging it. Constant partial discharge cycles will ruin a li-ion battery, as we've all experienced with cell phones. I strongly avoid attempting to charge my phone if it's over 50% charged, because I want to get as close to possible to a full discharge. I feel like if they make it so that your phone will charge if it's in your pocket when you're at your desk, for instance, they better improve battery technology to the point where constantly small discharging and recharging cycles does not damage the battery.
By the time there's enough of the charging points kicking around to be constantly charging your phone, battery life shouldn't be a problem unless you regularly go rambling...I mean how often these days are you *totally* away from a power source of some sort? (home, office, car, walking around town) If you're on a walk you'd likely be away for a day at most; if you're proper camping then you'd probably have it turned off anyway.... edit: Woohoooo just got 9,755,250 in MS pinball after playing it since this post lol. and 4 cups of red cup in the last hour. Now I get to drive to the airport
am I the only one who's worried about having batteries inside my MP3 players and whatnot, explode and set my crotch on fire when sitting next to a power outlet? also, wouldn't EMI be a problem for these kind of things? my wireless headphones would, I'm guessing, pack a spazz at having one of these wireless power outlets, as would my stereos. still, I can't be buggered reading the article and didn't take physics back in high school, so I'm most likely way off the mark. no matter, I've always preferred wired connections, especially if you get a ~10% efficiency drop with something like this, even if it is only for low drain devices. with the way my bedroom is, there would certainly be a sh*tload of interference (3 monitors, 2 PCs, 2 stereos, 1 PS2, 4 port ADSL router, plasma globe, 1000w halogen heater and a whole bunch of other crap taking up 15 power points in all, and crammed into a 12'x8' bedroom).
I've yet to fathom how plugging a cable in is such a hard task. I've also yet to work out how it's too hard to perform some cable-fu so you don't have the cable-mess that we're all so used to seeing. Cool but useless, IMO.
Don't know about you, but I have a cable demon that sneaks round the back of electrical items and ties all my cables in knots. To have about 60% less cables would be class.
Interesting technology, i am however very uncomfortable with microwaving ourselves even more while using this technology. also, i think it would be a waste of time with phones seeing as the next generation will have solar panels and generators reliant on motion to power them.
Still, ignorance has never stopped Joe Public from spouting his opinion on any science subject from evolution to global warming.
TBH, we are not the scientists etc working on the project, we have no idea what they are developing, and you guys are guessing what it "could" be and why it "might" not work on technology that is old, thing is, they "could" be working on something totally new, something which you have no idea about. Until we see this in operation, then we can discuss if it will work or not. At the end of the day, 5 years is a long long time technology wise. I mean, the high end GPU's in 5 years time will be like a GF 5200 (actually, even worse tbh).
