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Wireless Power Consortium Pushes For Standard
Slatterz writes "We've already heard about wireless power before, but now we're a step closer to throwing away our power cables and chargers. A consortium of eight companies has launched an
initiative to develop a wireless power standard. The drive was announced at the first Wireless Power Consortium conference at the Hong Kong Science Park yesterday. Most consumer electronic devices require a different charger, and the resulting tangle of wires and bulky devices is 'ugly, frustrating and inconvenient to use,' the group said. 'Wireless power charging takes away the need for wires and connectors. You simply drop your mobile phone, game device, electric shaver on the charging station and the battery is recharged,' explained Satoru Nishimura, senior manager at Sanyo."
The Wikipedia article talks about efficiencies between 40% and 80% for near field transmission. Indeed, that seems like a serious waste just for the convenience of not having to plug in your device...
FYI, far field transmissions using microwave can reach an efficiency of 95%, but I don't think you want such a beam in your house :-)
You can't develop a standard if you don't have similar technologies, and wireless power developers so far have been coming up with all kinds of different technologies. Remove the part of TFA that makes no sense in light of this, and you end up with an advertisement for this "consortium" disguised as a press release, faithfully and unquestioningly reproduced by PC Authority. Had PC Authority tried to do real journalism rather than simple reproduction, they'd have found that not only are the major proposed schemes so different that the idea of standardization is ridiculous, but that some of the members of the consortium aren't even developing any of those schemes.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
Wireless power is only practical in short ranges anyway. With standardized cables I wouldn't have drawerfuls of power cables.
Which is precisely what they're aiming for.
A standardized cable isn't gonna help you much when your mobile phone takes 5 volts to charge and your shaver or laptop takes 9 to 18. I imagine the technology would mimic proximity cards, you'd have a flat surface (say, a tabletop) and you'd sit your PDA, mobile, laptop, portable game system, etc. on it and depending on the number of windings in the receiving device and a small rectifier circuit, it would automatically receive the proper voltage.
AC electricity is fun.
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