Splashpower Boasts Wireless Power

Sullivan writes "Maccentral is running a story on a startup called Splashpower that hopes to be able to wirelessly recharge all of our handheld devices. They have a working prototype that already recharges an iPod Mini and a cell phone. Now we can look forward to yet another way to get brain cancer."

Comments

Its about time

[TubeSteak]

http://home.howstuffworks.com/question292.htm

My electric shaver recharges this way, and i've been wondering why we don't just have a pad that we can toss our electric gadgets onto for recharging.

My wish has been granted!

As for efficiency, I'll refer you to DansData, because he knows the answer to everything.
  Your Answer Here

Re:I love my new ...

[Remlik]

Yes they did prove it...at least my college physics prof did by using a hypothetical line 1 foot above your head carring an impossible amout of power (1 million volts or somthing silly like that). The magnetic field generated by the line was several orders of magnitude less than the magnetic field of the earth which you are exposed to at all times.

Also the cell phone brain cancer thing is becoming less and less likely.

Re:Two hits in the efficiency chain?

[Enigma_Man]

Also, you're going to get less than .7 efficiency from the inductive recharger. The .7 efficiency on something like a toothbrush-charging stand assumes that the coils actually overlap slightly (know that little knob that the toothbrush rests on? It's actually part of the magnetic core that helps transmit the AC over). The electric field decreases with the square of distance. In one of those toothbrush chargers, the inductors are separated maybe by a millimeter of thin plastic. If you have... say a mousepad-sized recharging "station" to put all of your goodies onto, you might end up with distances of several inches from the charging coil to the pickup coil in the device you actually want to charge. Without having an actual "stand" like electric toothbrushes do, you aren't going to transmit much power. If you're going to have a stand, might as well have metal contacts, and forego the less efficient inductive method. The only reason why toothbrushes really do that is because they're often wet, and you put them in your mouth, so you wouldn't want metal contacts sticking out (my waterproof electric razor actually has metal contacts, you just wouldn't want to plug in the AC while it's wet).