“Intel has made progress in a technology that could lead to the wireless recharging of gadgets and the end of the power-cord spaghetti behind electronic devices,” John Markoff reports for The New York Times.
“It says it has increased the efficiency of a technique for wirelessly powering consumer gadgets and computers, a development that could allow a person to simply place a device on a desktop countertop to power it. It could bring the consumer electronics industry a step closer to a world without wires,” Markoff reports.
“On Thursday, the chip maker plans to demonstrate the use of a magnetic field to broadcast up to 60 watts of power two to three feet. It says it can do that losing only 25 percent of the power in transmission,” Markoff reports.
“The Intel team describes its system as a “wireless resonant energy link,” and is experimenting with antennas less than two feet in diameter to remotely light a 60-watt light bulb,” Markoff reports.
“The Intel researchers said they were thinking about designing a system that would make it possible to recharge a laptop computer without wires,” Markoff reports.
More in the full article here.
25% power loss. That’s still far too much in a world that’s desperate to reduce it’s carbon footprint.
Magneto would be proud!
Bring on the mutants of the future!
The electric chair could certainly use a modern makeover.
Maybe Ballmer, AKA Uncle Fester isn’t quite the moron we think he is. Maybe he is just the completely misunderstood next phase of human evolution; i.e. Homo Sapien 2.0…
I agree that’s too much energy loss, just for purely aesthetic purposes. Maybe Intel should be using its vast resources figuring out ways to compete with PowerPC . . . oh, wait.
Hello? Anyone at Intel ever hear of Nikola Tesla?
Wow, I’m impressed! Five comments down and someone actually posts about Tesla! Seriously, he worked on this some 90 years ago.
yah, and Tesla burned out power plants trying to broadcast power to an entire community/world, if there is a 25% power loss at 2 feet think of what it would be halfway around the world.
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That being said Tesla was an awesome inventor!
And the potential health issues here?
Sounds like great technology.
Tesla was defintely before his time, and brilliant for sure.
However, I doubt his process was 75% efficient.
25% power loss is huge.
It’ll probably cause and cure cancer at the same time.
Actually, 25% loss isn’t too bad.
Burning waste material (like corn husks) and converting it to energy with a 75% efficiency rate is both cost effective and environmentally friendly (compared to the alternatives).
For example, look at the unit shown here: http://www.agripower.com
During some of Tesla’s broadcasts, nearby horses would jump and panic as electricity would arc from the bottom of their feet. He could light up light bulbs scattered on the ground near one of his coils.
Read his bio. There are a few good ones out there. Fascinating read.
Tesla was clearly a time-traveling alien determined to advance human technology faster than our societal evolution could keep up with, in an effort to undermine the human race so that it won’t become a threat to his race and eventually destroy them 2,000 years from now.
25% is huge when utilities and such are bending over backwards just to get you to change over to light bulbs that are 15% more efficient. Wipe away your homes entire effort with one laptop charger. I betcha that delivery via a cord is in the 98+% efficiency range. unless they can perform similarly to the actual cord I foresee the tree huggers organizing huge protests out front of their HQ (assuming they can get press coverage).
Unlike Tesla’s approach, sounds like Intel has found some way to focus the broadcast through electromagnetism.
Magnetic Fields! Is this how the Apple iTele and the Dell iZingaling are going to run on?
Progress, people, progress. Tesla was way before his time. His inventions are used in our everyday lives, and yet few know of him. If it wasn’t for him, we would have DC powerplants every few blocks all over cities (he invented AC current and built his generators with the help of GE at Niagra Falls).
We do not have Tesla anymore, but this is great news. Before we know it, our MacBook Pro’s will be completely wireless! It shouldn’t take long for the technological efficiencies to increase.
By the way, how many of you leave your monitors/computers/adaptors/et cetera plugged in and powered on when no one is using them? I don’t buy the whole carbon footprint arguement that this isn’t efficient enough yet. More energy is wasted by everday folks by just doing nothing. Put sensors in the charging station and when the laptop is charged it shuts off completely.
By the way, how many of you know that high power transmission lines to not actually have electricity flowing through the wires? There are so many electrons flowing that they are literally moving on the outside of the wire, kept together by a magnetic field. This is why you are able to hear the buzzing sound when you are near them. Plus, our current system of electric distribution leaks like a sieve. I am not sure of the percentage of power lost, but a huge portion of the energy generated never gets to the end user because of the inefficiencies of our primary conductors made from copper and aluminum.
Apple has patent applications for this very same thing. Wether it implements in the same manner I don’t know. I do know that Apple labs have been working on this even before wireless printing came on board.
Anyone remember wireless firewire???
They have been working on 1394e (?) for quite some time, so I am sure that we will have several vendors with different approaches to the same end.
Check out WildCharge, they’re already providing this technology for sale. While you’re there, be sure to vote for the iPhone/iPod Touch to the next device they develop an adapter for.
2-foot antennas?
EM field on your whole desktop just in case the one in your phone didn’t give you cancer?
25% increase in wasted power, electric cost and pollution?
Still need a power cord going to the transmitter anyway?
I’m sorry, but setting something in a dock is just not that hard. Cool experiments, but I’m not excited yet.
We’re all goina FRY!!!!!!!!!
“Maybe Ballmer, AKA Uncle Fester isn’t quite the moron we think he is. Maybe he is just the completely misunderstood next phase of human evolution; i.e. Homo Sapien 2.0…”
Nah. He’s actually Homo troglodyte 1.0 just out of beta, badly in need of a service pack and quite possibly the controversial missing link.
Energy cost are going up, lets wast some more!
Put sensors in the charging station and when the laptop is charged it shuts off completely.
Why wait to put it in this charging station why aren’t electric companies doing that now? Also Put sound or movement sensors in new light fittings, make TVs, and stereos with no standby. What’s this I here you say, the timers wont work. We have the technology rechargeable batteries, they can be charged when the unit is on.
My computers slowing down, I will just get on my cycle and charge the generator, I will be back in a while, only need 25% more power!!
AHHHHHHH!!!!!!!
What a bunch of idiots! Tesla this, tesla that. wireless firewire, cancer… jeebus effing key-rist!
HELLO! R&D;stands for “Research & Development”, so there really should be no debate about whether 25% is “good enough”. This is obviously a work in progress.
In fact, it’s an amazing feat in it’s current state. Last time I tried this, I measured a 100% power loss. Anyone on this board do better than me?
Uh, hello people, this is EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH! It’s not a production model!
Of course 25% power loss is too much. But Intel has managed to transfer 75% power wirelessly to an electronics device. That is phenomenal progress.
Before any product is released, it would have to be much, much more efficient. Saving power cables is not worth increasing your power bill by 25%, nor could most power grids handle a 25% increase in demand.
This is the future of portable devices, and eventually perhaps power delivered to other fixtures like light bulbs and refrigerators. How cool would it be to have lights in your house that you could just pick up and move wherever you wanted and never worry about plugging them in, tripping on extension cords, etc.?
AP – yes
A Transformer
Moves ‘electrons’ across a space with no touchy feely
Happy to read so many here with knowledge of basic electricity 101
Damn, this is an eclectic group you have MDN
BC
Less than 2 FEET in diameter?
Man. They’ll have to mount that in one Big Ass Table…
With the 25% power loss, this is technology is going to be DOA. A solution in search for a problem.
Then again, don’t windows machines use 25% of their power searching for viruses all the time?
Its coming at last!!!!! Apple is going to announce the iTransport at the next Macworld
Scotty – 3 to beam up – Energize!!!!!!!!
Aye Captain!
Has anyone here seen the movie “The Quiet Earth” from New Zealand. The premise is that scientists have just switched on a global wireless electricity network, and well…it didn’t turn out as expected. A fascinating and haunting movie available on Netflix.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089869/
iPhones are sold at Teslas in the UK.
Just like the navy boys, we’ll all be having Daughters and mutants in the near future
WOW! Now I can blow up my doll without plugging her in.
Tesla kicked @$$ !!!
Tesla – Didn’t his patents get “absorbed” by the government?
90 years of loss techno-evolution, with science fiddling with the scraps. Imagine what could have been without the intervention?
This is SCARY!
If it won’t burn your balls, your sperm cells could be mutated.
…And probably lots of new types of cancer cases all around… ;(
MobileMe flaw (or “how to spam Steve Jobs”)
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/21/an-easy-way-to-retrieve-the-entire-mobileme-user-email-list/
Piss on the carbon footprint.
Do it guys, build it.
Tree huggers, go climb back up into your tree. Hussein Obama will be joining you soon.
@X
So, we are all going to hell in a handbasket, why not enjoy the ride, eh, X? Anyone who tries to act responsibly is a tree hugger? Just be quiet and let the grown-ups talk.
“25% power loss is huge.” No, not really. If you know your power equations and engineering, power loss has always been pretty large. Even your car motor, turning gas into motion is pretty wasteful.
The key to this system is closeness. If you have a mat of some kind that you can lay your equipment on, so the distance between the broadcast energy and your receiver coils is small, the energy efficiency goes way up. (also, the coil / receiver in the receiving unit – the bigger more efficient the design the better).
Just a thought.
en
Tesla best and biggest wireless experiment was lighting a large amount of bulbs 2 miles away in Colorado Springs. One writer at the time claimed 20 miles, but there is discrepancies with that distance.
So even just 2 miles is huge. His bigger experiment in New York was to test hundreds of miles. Odd that partway thru building this big experiment his funding was pulled and he could not continue. The power companies most likely figured out that there was no way to meter peoples use if it was wireless transmission.
Just like the Intel device. If your cube was back to back with one that had this, most likely you would be in the field range and could siphon off of it.
Cool. And now my fillings glow!
Dick “Mr. Cold War” Cheney would love it if pacemakers were made with wirelessly rechargeable batteries!
Oh wait…that might mean he would be around longer. Never mind.
One guy actually build magnetic collections on his property where the high tension wires went through and used it to not only generate his own power but sell it back to the power company.
There’s a lot of inefficiency in our current system. Plenty of room for improvement all around.
Tesla was the first thing I though of when I heard this story, then an old Robert Heinlein novel. A great idea if it can be made to work…