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A Tablecloth to Charge Your Laptop
moscowde writes "Research scientists at the University of Tokyo have come up with a unique sheet-like material that can transmit electrical energy over a large area to nearby devices without the need for direct contact, so it can be made into a tablecloth or wallpaper and your appliance can be anywhere on a surface to get charged.
The system uses organic molecules as transistors, microelectromechanical switches, and miniature copper coils to transmit energy using electromagnetic induction."
If this could help get rid of the mess of power plugs and cables under my desk, this would be utterly fantastic. Wonder what happens if a liquid is spilled on the surface though...
I'm sure there's nothing harful in wrapping ourselves in yet more electromagnetic fields, not even shielded ones in this case.
I mean, what could possibly go wrong? After all little Jimmy's third arm is quite handy.
My soup has electrocuted a fly!
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I dunno, after seeing my friends wrestle with BT all the time [hidd --search, over and over] I'm actually fond of wired devices. Sure I use wifi from time to time but I'd generally much rather cat-5. No hassling with "do I have a good signal" and all that jazz.
Sometimes it's nice to just plug something in and have it work without worrying about the environment.
And sure a power "pad" sounds nice but take into account the power loss. The thing most likely converts AC to DC [power loss], then from DC to EM [power loss], from EM to DC in the device [power loss]. So you'll be burning more energy to get the same amount of work done. Not exactly a step forwards.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
yup and I did it 15 years ago in college. I made a charging mat that was basically a thick tablecloth that did the EXACT SAME THING. I based my thesis and final project on Tesla's work and even gave details. One thing I did was to increase the Frequency to 400hz that allowed me to have a weaker field to transmit the same power to eliminate the magnetize everything in a 4 foot radius effect.
It worked great and if you did your calculations right the tailored recivers for each device were incredibly easy to build and interface to the device. I modified a Motorola Brock phone to charge from a coil I placed in it's battery compartment.
The only reason thses things do not take off is that device makers make HUGE $$$ off of "accessories" like chargers. Dell rapes you blind on their charger prices, Apple and Nokia do the same. and they all go out of their way to make sure it uses a wierd voltage and wierd connector to make sure you cant easily use something else.
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