(CNN) — Electronics such as phones and laptops may start shedding their power cords within a year.
Wireless electricity may soon make tangled power cords a thing of the past.
That’s the prediction of Eric Giler, CEO of WiTricity, a company that’s able to power light bulbs using wireless electricity that travels several feet from a power socket.
WiTricity’s version of wireless electricity — which converts power into a magnetic field and sends it sailing through the air at a particular frequency — still needs to be refined a bit, he said, but should be commercially available soon.
Giler, whose company is a spinoff of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology research group, says wireless electricity has the potential to cut the need for power cords and throw-away batteries.
“Five years from now, this will seem completely normal,” he said.
Thanks for the heads up to the video Jägermeister.
Sure seems like this would cause a lot of power losses even with a directed beam? And in the case of directed beams of “energy” adding to the electromagnetic pollution:
Sign me up for the tinfoil ball sack.
Giler’s TED talk:
http://www.ted.com/talks/eric_giler_demos_wireless_electricity.html
He demos a wireless monitor, and iPhone.
Looking at their website you have to dig quite deep to get any real facts about this product. They do have two scientific papers, the summary of one says:
“…transfer over distances up to 8 times the radius of the coils. We were able to transfer 60 watts with ~40% efficiency over distances in excess of 2 meters”
40% sounds really bad when you can get close to 100% just by plugging something in. I thought our new world order masters want us all to save energy – maybe this is just to fry our brains.
Eric Giler demoed this on TED.
Nothing new here. Nikola Tesla invented this a long time ago. What stopped him was to move significant power over a distance, voltages get high and things start arcing. Its a basic physics problem that hasn’t been solved.
Also, there could be health issues with very strong electric fields, not to mention radio interference.
Chris1
Does MIT block Wikipedia?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse-square_law#Light_and_other_electromagnetic_radiation
This is ridiculous! Not only is it EXTREMELY inefficient, it fills the area with electromagnetic energy. Where is this a good thing!? You want wireless use rechargeables, if you can charge them with an alternative energy source, better still. I use a 20000 Mah solar panel battery combo like this -> http://chinavasion.com/product_info.php/pName/high-capacity-solar-charger-battery-for-pc-laptop-mobile-phone/
Terrible idea considering the interference and heat loss. Terrible.
I like how they claim “It needs to be refined a bit,” meaning the laws of electromagnetic interaction need to be tweaked a tad.
I thought the basic problems of this technology were solved by using a wire?
# 3
Thanks for the video link Jag.
The guy doing the talk says it’s perfectly safe because we are already living in the Earth’s magnetic field. Well sorry, the Earth’s field doesn’t alternate at near radio frequencies.
Unfortunately the only two papers on the company’s website are sequestered in a journal pay-site so it’s hard to find any real facts.
My money is on this being like be like mobile phones. They’ll spend 10 years selling the things before they bother to do any animal tests, find out they cause tumors and then try and cover things up.
hello MMF magneto motive force
meh “converts power into a magnetic field”
how i laughed
damn armatures
Electricians will kill all the developers
And if they don’t the copper barons will…
But seriously. Can you imagine the impact on the copper and electrician trades/industries if this really does get refined to the point of usability and reasonably efficient transfer?
Didn’t Tesla come up with this, like, 100 years ago?
If they could get it up to 80% or 90% efficient, they’d really have something.. I’m sure one day they will, or another technology…
But when SoCal has to do rolling black outs when there is extreme electricity use, usually from air conditioners, there’d be rolling black outs all the time if there was only 40% of the power that there is now..
This is a fantastic, practical implementation of cutting the last cord. In fact, I have one at home now – my electric tooth brush.
Hopefully, the end of all of those wasteful transformers that one gets with every frigg’n electronic gadgets.
Unfortunately, the Republicans in here are resisting this as being a Communist plot to kill grandma. Sheesh.
In Soviet Russia, energy from Lenin brain light all Moscow.
Why not just get everybody to run across carpet and touch door knobs?
Thankfully there are more intelligent people here than investors in this project.
(#16 Dallas represents the exceptions. Perhaps the wireless energy toothbrush has been too close to the brain…)
Wireless will never be more efficient than direct wired connection. Until the alien technology at Area 51 is made public, the laws of physics will not change.
I have always had a few questions. One is will type of power delivery create lots of interference? Also, since their will be a lot of electrical waves going through and around our bodies will this create problems with our health? I certainly do not claim to know much about this technology but it appears that it could have some negatives that are not being addressed.