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Wireless Power Now A Reality
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35
slashdottit! tm
CSMastermind writes "CNN is reporting on a breakthrough technology. A startup called Powercast has developed and patented a device, the size of a dime and costing 5$ to make, which allows power to be transmitted wirelessly. The device has already gained FCC approval and the company has inked deals with the likes of Phillips. From the article: 'Powercast says it has signed nondisclosure agreements to develop products with more than 100 companies, including major manufacturers of cell phones, MP3 players, automotive parts, temperature sensors, hearing aids, and medical implants. The last of those alone could be a multibillion-dollar market: Pacemakers, defibrillators, and the like require surgery to replace dead batteries. But with a built-in Powercast receiver, those batteries could last a lifetime. '"
IIRC, there was something like this last year....
Although i could be thinking of the "wireless extension cords" on ThinkGeek...
Have you seen the arrow?
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Well, no point in me returning to Slashdot until Monday... hopefully nothing truly interesting and non-April-Fool's related gets posted until then.
Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together.
If the next slashdot score isn't 42 I'm going to be Unhappy.
Thanks!
Anyone else notice that stupid 'slashdottit' box? I cant view the summary of the story (not that I was going to read it)
if its some type of joke it isn't funny..
Tesla did this sort of thing prior to 1900...
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Dupe.
OMG Wireless Extension Cords!!!! LOL!!!!"
it would be great!!! just think all that vibrators stuff that...
oh ok, april's fools day, right
i got it now
Wireless power has been a reality for quite some time:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/41/wec.shtml
Write-up from Jan.
Official Site
"Frank! I *told* you you should get the cable backup, but noooo....they'd mess up the line of your suit". Shakes head dolefully and flutters hands ineffectually "At least I could have plugged that pacemaker in".
Some days it's just not worth
chewing through my restraints.
How come a CNN story is perpetuating the April Fool bullshit with an article from the 30th?
So Nikola Tesla was right after all.
It's real, methinks.
This one's actually real, though.
If this is an April Fools joke then a lot of work went into establishing background for it. According to a CNET article back in January this company (Powercast) attended CES and mentioned Philips as a partner back then. The article referenced here was written on March 30th (although the URL has 04/01 in the name). That article is in complete agreement with the Cnet article. the Powercast website (powercastco.com) was established last October. Then again, Slashdot has a tradition of a bunch of bogus articles on 04/01, but perhaps this isn't one of them.
Well, we know that every energy conversion step wastes some energy. So, at times where several governments are planning to ban incandescent lights, is it wise to go the way of wirelless power, with all the potential waste, just to enable people to have the convenience of charging their laptops without the minor hassle of handling a cable? (PS: Of course, for serious applications like medical implants, I think it's a good idea and worth the waste)
Your ad could be here!
No.
See this arstechnica article from Jan 17 2007.
9 .html
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070117-863
All hail the power of induction! The same power that lets insane farmers lay down ~2km of copper wire underneath high tension lines to leech ~110V of current will power our PDAs from... a few centimeters away.
occultae nullus est respectus musicae - originally a Greek proverb
Maybe slashdot is gonna do a 'reverse april fools' day, because they know no one will fall for their stuff, they're gonna put stuff that SOUNDS fake (of course they'll probably fall for ones and think they're real and submit it as if it was).
Don't toy with me maaan. This better be the real deal, yeah, I see that date. It would just be too cruel for something this cool to be crushed by being a april fools joke.
Yet Another Example of Wireless Power Transmission.
e r
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_radio_receiv
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
post a real story on april fools day! We barely expect legitimate stories the rest of the year, much less on April 1. Next thing you know stories will be edited to meet standard English requirements.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Without wires, the price of copper will drop. What are all of those copper thieves going to do for money now? Maybe now I'll be able to legally melt all of my pennies again.
If you have something that you dont want anyone to know, maybe you shouldnt be doing it in the first place -Eric Schmidt
At least it's a Sunday and I'm not at work trying to kill time. See you Monday, Slashdot.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
You've been had. How embarrassing is it to broadcast it to the world?
That to the best of my knowledge CNN doesn't do April Fools stuff. So anything linked on CNN is most likely real, unless they manage to get duped.
Let's see. We have:
....
Power over Ethernet.
Ethernet over power.
Now we can have Ethernet over Power over Wireless over Ethernet over Power over
I think we are almost there.
A lot of Slashdot readers didn't listen in Physics class.
The batteries already last a lifetime!
As in: when they die, you die.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
I have only read the summary, but I am overjoyed by this fantastic new development! Batteries that could last a lifetime! Yippee! I am fed up with laptop and cellphone batteries losing capacity after a couple of years.
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
My toothbrush has been charged wirelessly for years. So, they just cranked up the power? Hmmm
"Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are the dead." A. Huxley
This has to be a joke. Wireless power?? anyone with fundamental knowledge of electronics would see that something like this cant be possible. Current is a flow of electrons which need a high and a low potential to flow. And where would these electrons come from when say, situated in someones heart closed off to any sort of source for renewal of flow. I am certain this is made up, but if its not, it truly is revolutionizing, not only to the world of commerce, but to the world of physics.
I've got an idea:
Lets take a ridiculous sounding true story and then wait until April Fools to post it. No one will believe it, but the joke is still on them!
If wireless power didn't exist, RFID tags wouldn't work. This sounds like nothing more than a high-powered RFID reader without the information-transmitting part.
In other words, if it's an April Fools joke, it's not a very good one.
dom
more obvious than the p-p-powerbook?
MABASPLOOM!
Microwave power transmission has been a reality since at least the 60's and is still in use today (just don't get in the way :). See Das Vikipediem for more info. I believe also that Nikolai Tesla did some little work in this area again see El Viki
Don't get me wrong I applaud any technology the size of a dime that can be made for $5 and transmit power safely for our nifty home devices and pacemakers but, due respect to CNN's science guys I ain't about to go out and buy Powercast's stock just yet. Especially since the most common use of bradcast power (the Radarange) nd medical tech (pacemakers) are rumoured not to get along together.
But is it worth all the shocks?
I would like to invest in your development of this super power source. This requires a private arrangement. My company, IM-krook LTD has reviewed your patent and find it valid. IM-krok will be willing to fund the progjct for $40,000,000 Million dollars. USA. We will need a bank deposit number and credit card numbers with pins to verify your sincerity^w^w^w^w. You will receive these funds underlegal claims; all legal documents will be carefully worked out to ensure a risky free transfer. I am willing to pay a generous management fee as well as appreciation as soon as this transaction is financialy sponcored & completed by you. I have all the details. All correspondences will be via email, for now. The funds in question are quite large. I will expect a straight answer from you. Yes or no. If yes, Kindly furnish me with your personal information which must includ your direct cell phone and fax number, your address and company name, then lets work out the modalities from there Thanks and God bless you, Mr. David Yong. Phone: (44) 7024097815
only problem with leaching the am power is that his lights would get dimmer and brighter with the changes in the amplitude of the signal. Also I dont think the fence would be insulated from the ground. So all that flickering power would be sent right down the fence polls in to the ground. I call BS on this one...
I have to return some videotapes...
cancer
Table-ized A.I.
Besides, no one ever said that environmentalism and conservation meant that you have to live a shitty life without any conveniences. Actually, some people do say that, but that's because they're ignorant white trash that fear change (ie: conservatives). Conservation is about make the best use of resources, not living in a cave and trying to pretend that technology doesn't exist. One of the big reasons that it's so important to look for ways to save power is so that there will be power there for new uses like this. Save a few watts by replacing your incandescents and you'll have that much more power available when you want to run an mp3 player the size of a matchbook that drives wireless earbud headphones... or a headphone implant that lives in your skull. But if you've squandered all of the world's energy resources in order to power your conventional SUV just so that you wont have to face the indignity of buying an electric one that's cheaper, more reliable, and more powerful ... well, then you deserve what you'll get, which will be to have to walk to the commuter trainstation (once you can no longer afford to power a personal vehicle at all) and wait with no mp3 player implant in your skull, for a ride to a shitty job that is barely worth doing because there are no natural resources left to drive the economy and so everyone has to work in the service industry for the two dozen or so people that own all the land and are masters of a new feudal system.
Make it one we had as an April fools joke *last* year, then ppl will cry "dupe" too. It's actually really funny if you think about it: the only real story thatll prolly get posted today, it's an (almost) unbelieveable breakthrough that's been made fun of on this day in the past, and everyone will gloss over it as an april fools gag...
"goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series
can confirm, this is Accurate, via CNN although.. im still spectical
http://assignments.uspto.gov/assignments/q?db=pat& pat=7027311
Total Assignments: 2
Patent #:7027311
Issue Dt: 04/11/2006
Application #: 10966880
Filing Dt: 10/15/2004
Publication #:US20050104453
Pub Dt:05/19/2005
Inventors:Timm A. Vanderelli, John G. Shearer, John R. Shearer
Title:
METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR A WIRELESS POWER SUPPLY
It is no longer uncommon to be uncommon.
Agreed. If the FCC allowed the company to transmit 1 Watt, which I doubt, then the power would immediately spread throughout the room and beyond. There is no way to keep the power focused unless both the sending and receiving antenna is close to the size of one wavelength, at least, an unacceptable size. And it would certainly not be acceptable to focus the power, because of concerns about health. (At 900 MHz, the wavelength is 33.4 centimeters, about 1 foot. If you don't live in the U.S., you may need to know that the FCC is the U.S. government agency that regulates electromagnetic transmissions.)
Question: If this is an April Fools joke, it is the most elaborate one I've seen. Is it a joke or is it fraud? I can't imagine Philips allowing the company name to be used to advertise an April Fools joke.
It's a tragedy when otherwise intelligent people play video games instead of learning about the world around them.
Anyone else care to mention that the submitter of this article spelled Philips incorrectly?
But... the microwave power plant shouldn't be available until around 2028; that's what the strategy guide said!
My life's goal is to get a score of +3!
The Tesla coil can do this too. It didn't work the same and It was just a lot more dangerous, but I say that the guys who said, "If you had asked me seven months ago if this was possible, I would have said, 'Are you dreaming?", didn't do their homework. Its very possible, not realistic, but possible!
Startups should take note that performing any sort of legitimate press-release on April Fools day will completely destroy any credibility you may or may not have.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
The Sonicare toothbrush uses induction, not electromagnetic transmission. The little plastic tower on which you set the toothbrush is the primary of a transformer. The secondary of the transformer is in the toothbrush. The primary and secondary must be very close to allow the transfer of power (or the frequency must be high).
Neither induction or electromagnetic transmission allow the transfer of power over significant distance around people, because of the possibility that humans could be in the way.
Normal radio waves involve only microwatts of power, too little to power most electronic devices, which require milliwatts or watts.
I am not too sure that this is an april fools joke... as an april fools joke normally only falls on April 1st.... I seen this on digg over a week ago. It was on multiple sites, from CNN Money, to CNet reviews...
m l?tag=promo
m l?tag=txt
http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-12760_7-6676861-1.ht
and this one is from January...
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-12760_7-9673092-5.ht
check out the company page at powercastco.com
Are you absentminded?
wow, it's taken this long for Tesla's (U.S.)government-confiscated research papers to finally see the light...what's next ? device to harness the earth's 'free-energy' ?
"If you had asked me seven months ago if this was possible, I would have said, 'Are you dreaming? Have you been smoking something?'" says Govi Rao
I thought this was common knowledge 10 years ago, just not the engineering side.
God spoke to me.
Haha! Made you look. April fools. Buh-bye. See you Tuesday. By then, all this stupid crap should have worked its way off the front page.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Sigh.... The tagging beta isn't helping either. Some new kid might click on /., and before dude even has time to get excited, he sees "aprilfools" "someponything", eg...
I have bad karma. What do I care what you think?
It'll be a great backup to my TV over internet over TV service!
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
The U.S. Patent Office during the Bush administration has been starved for funds. The issuance of a patent means little, because those who want corruption want frivolous patents. A patent, even if eventually ruled invalid, can intimidate competitors.
Notice that Powercast LLC is in the same small town as the "inventors".
Perhaps the patent is for something that really does transmit power. However, the laws of physics prevent the use that is advertised, in my opinion.
For a quick charge, just put your cell phone into the microwave.
Anybody else getting this huge Microsoft ad box floating over the stories and comments? Annoys the hell out of me. Way to go MS, this really makes you much more likable, I can't wait to purchase your ... oh, never mind, I can't remember what it was.
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
John Shearer? Isn't that the Video Professor?
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
Because no one who responded saying this was april fools or implying it actualy RTFA. Shows you what small minority percentage of people actually RTFA at all, let alone before they wisely comment on it. Pretty sad eh?
It isn't. Its a CNN article dated 30th, and someone else dug up an article about this from a while back. On a side note, pretty much anything dated 30th is before any international dateline of april fools. (i.e. you might see stuff about April Fools on the 31st of march since some places are already at april 1st.
Thought it was an April's Fool.
P TO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2F srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=7027311.PN.&OS=PN/7027 311&RS=PN/7027311
Wrong.
The fools sit - as so often - in the USPTO. They have granted, I repeat *granted* the following claim 1 of US7,027,311:
"1. An apparatus for a wireless power supply comprising: means for receiving a range of RF radiation across a collection of frequencies; and means for converting the RF radiation across the collection of frequencies into DC, the converting means includes an absorbing mechanism which is resonant for a desired band of RF spectrum."
http://patft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=
What a fscking invention !
Congratulations, Nguyen; Matthew V., for a witty examination !
Official webpage: http://www.powercastco.com/ Also, they were picked "Best Emerging Technology at CES 2007" Theres other links availible on their webpage (and from google), and NONE of the source articles are dated April 1st.
Last 60 yrs have shown us: No Tesla = No wireless power.
This has already been reported. There is nothing new here, really: it's just an efficient transformer.
My concern is just how efficient will it be? We waste huge amounts of energy already with directly coupled chargers that are left plugged in and powered when not in use. This is just a *less* efficient version of the same.
So, anyone have any figures for efficiencies compared to direct connection chargers?
Open Source Drum Kit, LPLC deve board - mjhdesigns.com
it's Philips (Royal Electronics B.V.) - not Phillips (the screws).
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
But you have to act out a skit from monty python first and send me the videotape.
babelfish this in the meantime, then. Inventors working my themselves discovering amazing things and getting basically fought. I had seen the related video on national tv this ain't an april fool.
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
Not to mention that the original article is actually dated March 30 2007: 7:08 AM EDT. So either 1)it's not fake or 2) April Fools day is now preceded by March Fools day
Before I start I do believe that this is in fact an April Fool... When I first read it I thought...cool that would be a good idea.. and then moved on. Hang on a second I though, hold the phone... my brain started to clear into reality (ok I've just woken up, this only 3 hours sleep).
Firstly, if this was really possible than why have we not seem self powered radios on the market, after all they do use radio signals and these signals are passed through the coils that are technically the instrument of energy conversion...mmmmmmmm...
Secondly, now this I'm a little foggy on, I've not done electronics for some years but I believe that coils are only about 80-90% efficient and therefore the small amount of energy present within a radio signal is reduced dramatically before we start with any form of other charging circuit that would be required, and these circuits would also be quite in-efficient...mmmmm
Third, just think about the efficiency of radio signals, the further away you from the source the less energy is available... again I'm not sure about this but I think it involves some form of inverse square law or something, meaning that you only have to travel a short distance before you are effectively out of range, think about how hard it is to get a good wireless signal on your router at home, walls and other objects get in the way to sap the signals strength..
I'm sure that in the future we will develop devices that are so efficient, and not require a super cooled environment to work in, that energy can be extracted from the ether, however I don't believe that time is now.
This article has been carefully written so that those with knowledge would engage their brains into figuring out how it would work (tech geeks like me) and go at a tangent considering this rather than considering a slightly bigger picture. I was also delivered at such a time, and this is the clear bit, at a time when they knew that I would be half asleep and be drawn in by the scam....paaa, it didn't work, I hope ... lol
Sure you could have a power station that only broadcast radio energy when a suitable device comes in range but even with that I'd guess at least 95% of the power is wasted. That's fine for medical implants and other devices where the wireless power transfer is a necessity rather than an option. But for conventional devices like cell phones and mice and keyboards, your burning a lot of fossil fuel just for a little convenience.
I noticed that. The parent I was replying to had that in his comment, and in another comment in this story I mentioned it myself :)
Anyway, yeah, this is real. It was even shown at CES 2007 and chosen as some best something or other of the show.
I'm getting a kick outta all the physics challenged people who assume this is an April Fools post.
The transmitter is a 12-pin package; mostly ground pins, plus serial clock/data, vdd, and rf out. It operates on 5V.
The receiver chip is a four pin package with rf in, gnd, dc out, gnd. It claims 70% efficiency, no external components required, 1uW power consumption, and is available in voltages from 1.2 to 6.0 volts. It operates in the 900 MHz and 2.4 GHz bands.
But what's the available power? The health document says "Of the many consumer applications for Powercast technology, the highest-power transmitter identified was just under 2 Watts." An isotropic radiator will produce an energy density of P / (4 * pi * R^2), and an isotropic receiver has aperture lambda^2 / (4 * pi). At 900 MHz, with a distance of 1m, we're talking about 1.5 mW. Directional antennas will raise (or lower) that figure a bit. Close the distance and the power goes up.
I wonder how they minimize the interference these things must create.
Up to 70% efficient means at least a 30% energy loss; when recharging millions of little devices, that all adds up to a lot of waste. In virtually all cases, recharging the old fashioned way is likely to be better for the environment. However, it looks set to become so popular, that I wonder if we'll be given the choice. I hate wires too, and the convenience of this invention is obvious, but it also has a down side.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
actually the whole thing is an aprils fools joke:7 25221
/bin/login
since the DHS got the master key for DNS http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/03/31/1
they changed all the domains(cnet, cnn, etc) to point to false information for the 1st of April...and
rm
Has one one ever seen the film The Quiet Earth ? l for one want to survive. Now just to get the timing right before l top myself.
You put this device in the corner of a large room. It consumes X watts of power. You place an item one meter distant along the wall to the left. The efficiency rating is 70%, so the device should receive 0.7 watts. You then place another item one meter distant along the wall to the right. Does this also receive 0.7 watts? Does the first receiver absorb waves that would otherwise have been received by the second? Does the unit sense the reception and boost its output in response?
I can see this making sense if it's a 100W device that can power several 1W items. But that is hardly a 70% efficiency unless you stick it in a box made of receivers.
Actually, it's not. They faked the date. But look at the URL :P
Back in the days of the CK-722 and 2N107 transistors (mid 1950's), there was a schematic published for a crystal radio (using diode) with 1-stage audio amp that self-powered off the antenna input.
There's references from back in January, at least, also (I couldn't be arsed to dig any deeper to see how far back I could go.)
A slight problem with wireless power is illustrated here: http://www.bugbash.net/comic/3.html
I can't say that I don't give a fuck. I've just run out of fuck to give.
Time to hit the books again. There are two ways to couple power: static field coupling (i.e. like a transformer) and propagating-wave coupling (i.e. radio.)
... at all. The physics says it can't.
A static field may be purely E or purely H, but it doesn't propagate. Transformers are the simplest example. There's a magnetic field generated by one inductor that's coupled to another inductor through a magnetic (H) field. There's no electric field to speak of. That field won't move
To get a propagating field, you have to have both E and H components. When you have both E and H, you can calculate the Poynting Vector to figure out which direction your wave will go. For the link-challenged, that'd be S = E x B where the "x" is the vector cross product. Yes, do the right-hand-rule thing now.
Your AM radio antenna is called a "ferrite bar antenna" and couples energy to/from the H-field component of the propagating wave. There is an alternating magnetic field component, but it's not alone. Don't believe me? Here's an example of a guy who replaced his ferrite bar antenna with other types, including a quarter-wave long-wire whip. Whip antennas are E-field devices, and require an E-field component of a radio wave to function. Give it a try.
It's the ultimate April Fools prank!
Why does my post history abruptly stop? I want to laugh at the stupid things I posted as a kid.
This is an example of how broken our patent system is. Prior art goes back to Tesla, where over 100 years ago he transmitted 100 Watts of AC power 100 miles and recovered 97 Watts of energy. Secondly all RFID chips use this to power themselves. There is NOTHING innovative or novel in this device and it never ever should have been granted a patent.
I really wonder how far our world could have advanced in the last 200 years if patents either didn't exist or were structured in such a way that they were much more limited in scope.
Another bad day for us for 17 years.
Cheers
* Carthago Delenda Est *
I made a mistake below when I said that radio transmissions are at the "microwatt" level. I meant microvolt. Microvolts times microamps equals picowatts.
sheesh.
Fun there is already a company with this tech and selling it - ecoupled. They developed it quite a few years ago and have the patents.
http://www.ecoupled.com/
If the range really is three feet, then I want to hang a transmitter in the middle of my Christmas tree, and clip on a bunch of LEDs attached to receivers on the branches. Those Christmas tree light wires are a pet peeve.
Tesla was able to transmit large amounts of energy through the air about 100yrs ago. That being said, yes we have the technology to do something of this sort, the question is how many of us want Tesla's Static-electic discharger's ( lightning emiters )in our cell phones, No matter how cool it would look.
Nope, I use AdBlock plus.
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
Yeah, I don't because I figure I should at least give /. some ad clicks, but this MS one will drive me to it soon.
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
You're a moron. Big, big, big moron.
The patent is frivolous and yet another example of how badly the patent office is screwing up as of late. Looking up the patent, claim 1 reads:
"1. An apparatus for a wireless power supply comprising: means for receiving a range of RF radiation across a collection of frequencies; and means for converting the RF radiation across the collection of frequencies into DC, the converting means includes an absorbing mechanism which is resonant for a desired band of RF spectrum."
The examiner stated reason for allowance is that the prior art did not discolse a resonance. For all of you out there who are not rf engineers, using resonance in an rf circuit is about as novel as using nails in housebuilding. I think you would be hard pressed to find an rf design that did not include at least one (intentional) resonance. It would suprise the hell out of me if Tesla's system was not based on a resonance.
As for the "invention", if it is even remotely related to what they are showing in their patent then people have tried this before. They talk of 1.2MHz frequency, which means that if you are within a few hundred meters of the power source then you are using quasi-static (magnetic in this case) coupling. Its just a big air-core transformer, making magnetic field in the air with one coil and and recovering with another. If you get the two coils close together the efficiency can be good, seperate them by a bit and you'll be burning most of your power in the transmitter coil and whatever other bits of metal you have in your house that are close to the transmitter.
Everyone made due with the 5 megs Hotmail threw your way; Yahoo, when paid, would give you some 10 megs?
Hundred meg mailboxes were things to be feared by sysadmins and only existed if you worked in a large company or hosted your own.
Then all of the sudden Gmail came out on April Fools with a 1 gig mailbox. Everyone sorta giggled and assumed they were joking, too!
This chip would make the project a reality. I understand that at present it is completely infeasible. If it were, I would have a bunch of cool robotic helicopters flying around my house. I just said that with this little power receiver chip it would be completely feasible. If nothing captures the RC power then nothing uses that power.
It is no longer uncommon to be uncommon.
I think Tesla demonstrated this technology on a large scale in New York in the late 1800's/early 1900's. It never got implemented because sending this much energy through things, like brains, can lead to things like cooked brains. Wireless energy. How very retro. Like stealing ideas for profit. Some ideas never grow old.
http://reviews.cnet.com/Powercast/4660-12760_7-668 4005.html
It is no longer uncommon to be uncommon.
What this company has made is a low cost (I assume) rectenna http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rectenna/ and transmitting antenna.
I only just got it half working this past Friday (the receiving antenna I designed and fabricated was 200MHz off my design frequency of 10.5GHz so it was useless). This technology has been around forever but hasn't been exploited much, it can be found in some of RFID technologies though. The biggest pain is designing the microwave circuits for maximum efficiency which is more of an art then a science. The fact this company has design can adjust itself for different loads is pretty interesting.
Pretty cool to see this commercialized. Especially after getting questions about the viability and applications of the technology during my final presentation. Maybe I should send the company a resume, I can't imagine they would be too impressed by my project though.
It's real, and reading the patent was entertaining. They describe harvesting power from broadcast transmissions. "Sample Apparatus 10" is a glorified crystal set like they used to sell at Radio Shack, down to its 1N34 germanium diode detector.
The April Fool's joke is on the USPTO for accepting this overly broad, non-specific, spurious application. For prior art, search the name "Marconi"!
The actual April Fools are their investors.
All April fools jokes aside, Nikola Tesla DID do this, decades ago.
Please at least pick someting that isnt real if you are going to do a April 1 joke...
---- Booth was a patriot ----
No, Tesla was mentally ill later in his life, in a way that you would agree was mental illness.
The simple fact is that if a capacitor combined with this tech can be created cheaply, then it will replace most batteries overnight. Basically, nobody likes changing batteries. But if I can buy batteries for my kid's toys and never have to take them out again until the toy ends (at which point, I get to re-use the "battery"), then I am all over it. And so will other parents.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_induc tion
They're using their grammar skills there.
Hm. Variations on a theme, eh?
Ahem.
Fuck you.
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As a few people have pointed out, using this device will waste an additional 30%+ of the energy used to recharge batteries.
They will have been working on this product for several years and must have been agonising over the attention that has been focused on global warming and energy efficiency in the last year or so.
To combat this they have put together a hilarious white paper on the environmental benefits which you can request from their website. My favourite is the solar panel one:
An Ecologically Friendly
Alternative to Solar Cells
Though often hailed as a staple of green power, solar cells can pro-
duce potentially damaging environmental effects. Chemicals required
for the production of certain types of solar cells can pose a significant
threat to manufacturing employees and the ozone if not handled
properly. Solar cells also contain cadmium, which, as stated above,
constitutes an environmental disposal hazard
12
. The adoption of the Powercast Wireless Power Platform would diminish these undesirable
effects by providing a more ecologically sound energy harvesting
alternative.
Karma police, I've given all I can, it's not enough, I've given all I can, but we're still on the payroll.
Note that the difference between an antenna radiating RF power and a transformer primary transferring power to a secondary is whether or not you've got any electric and magnetic fields that are perpendicular to each other to form the EM wave. Going to high frequencies means you get away from the need to close proximity and pig iron cores.
Just remember that the cnn article is a buncha hype being spewed by the CEO and that in reality, the technology probably has some real limitations. An example MIGHT be a cell-phone charge taking 10 hours instead of 1 hour.
It's possible that the company might take off and do very well. It may be more likely that it's a waste of investment money.
It's also very possible that the equipment causes all sorts of interference being that little bit about having crossed electric and magnetic fields may be hard to prevent. It definitely would be double plus ungood were any pacemaker wearers to keel over dead at the same time they were in proximaty to one of these gizmos - regardless of an actual physical effect being in play.
The guy was freakin' brilliant. But he had some things goign against him:
Making and playing with toys that are equivalent to crude unshielded magnetrons pushing who knows what power levels over many years, something's bound to affect him sooner or later.
Then of course being a tech-nerd in his time that wasn't business or socially savvy didn't help his reputation. (His technical knowledge would have upstaged Edison, who had the keen managerial-type business sense not to hire anyone that could steal the show... Funny how Edison got a lot of personal credit for things that were actually acomplished business-wise. (As in mostly bought and licenced. Edison really was smart in that department.) At the same time Tesla was being made a "mad-scientist-fool" for what he was discovering and accomplishing.) Despite some of the more notable and wild concepts/projects, Tesla was also happy to work quietly behind the scenes. Westinghouse got their electric motors/generators and established standards behind today's 110-120V 60Hz grid, while the man who made it happen died broke and penniless.
Last but not least was Tesla's dry humor. He'd ocassionally test people by giving a little B.S. mixed with fact to see how they'd react. (Which seems pretty common amongst modern techies.) The tech-illiterate people back in his time were unlikely to tell when he was pulling their leg. (Previous accomplishments combined with milking the press while keeping a straight face didn't help the "crazy" reputation.) People today are more likely to get his sense of humor.