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Wireless Power Consortium Pushes for "Qi" Standard
The Wireless Power Consortium (comprised of Samsung, Sanyo, Olympus, Philips, Texas Instruments, and others) has started a push towards a wireless charging standard under the moniker "Qi" (pronounced "chee"). "Members of the Wireless Power Consortium are reviewing version 0.95 of its technical specification which defines a proposed standard for charging devices, using up to 5Watts power, delivered by electromagnetic induction. The spec could evolve into a standard — and will be demonstrated by multiple vendors on September 15th to 16th. ... It is less ambitious than the system demonstrated this summer by Witricity, which operates at a distance of a few meters, using resonance, which the company claims has green benefits through replacing disposable batteries."
...for those that don't want to read the summary but may wish to discuss it intelligently in person.
There. Fixed that for you.
This is definitely a step in the right direction. I know it's really frustrating looking for a non-standard plug for my phone. I'm sure the days of searching for the right power adapter are limited.
Probably as soon as all the patents held by trolls in Texas run their litigious course. See you in thirty years!
A libertarian shat on my carpet once. Claimed the free market would sort it out. -Ford Prefect(8777)
5 watts is not a lot of energy. It's not like it is an induction cook top and you are a ferrous pan or anything. :-)
I can't see why we wouldn't need both - an induction system for recharging batteries, and a resonance system for wireless power. We need the latter because it make wireless power a reality, we need the former because there won't be universal coverage of the latter.
Kind of like the corruption of the Elves into Orcs in LOTR, the idea of charging the air with yet more EM pollution and calling it "Qi" makes a sick mockery of the real thing.
And there's a frickin' pyramid with an eye ball on the dollar bill.
We're being laughed at even as we are mutilated and enslaved.
Cue the conceited, ill-informed rationalizations.
-FL
Actually, when this becomes real a tinfoil hat may be the very last thing you'd want to wear. I'm assuming this is sort of like what happens if you go near really high capacity power lines with a flouescent bulb, where the power in the air is enough to cause the bulb to light. It's also enough that having lived near one long enough I can attest that metal isn't fun to wear near one.
--Forest C. Adcock--
Maybe I just don't understand their plan, but this seems like it would be close to a useless technology. It seems like it would be more expensive to develop and implement than a standard power cable, and you would have to set your device onto the power mat. Does it really take that much effort to grab the cable and plug it in? Also, in the case of cell phones, you wouldn't be able to use the cell phone while it's charging like most cell phones allow you to do currently. Win = Power cord.
Now, the other technology that was mentioned in the article uses electromagnetic fields. This seems like it would be incredibly inefficient as you would be beaming energy to nothing in particular in hopes that something was using it. With this technology, you wouldn't have to leave your mobile device on a mat, but you would still need to be within 2m of the source. It still seems like a traditional power cord wins.
Now, I know that Slashdot is all about advancing technology, but how do they get over these hurdles? It seems like developing a universal wired charging station would be more advantageous in the short run. What am I missing?
But then I realized the cable was blue, so I only gave it one star. I hate blue.
...for those that don't want to read the first damn sentence in the summary but may wish to discuss it intelligently in person.
There. Fixed that for you.
This is potentially a good thing. How many different charging devices do you have at the moment? I've got one for AAA and AA batteries, one for my phone, one for my iPod, one for my wife's phone, one for my DSLR, one for my camcorder, one for my...
I don't need long-range wireless power, like some developments are working on -- whilst this would be quite cool, it's very inefficient at this stage. Wireless charging of all these devices would however be a great benefit to reduce clutter and waste. If all the devices are compatible with the one spec of charger, then should I lose my phone charger, it doesn't matter as it's compatible with the charger I've got. I've had to replace one of the phone chargers not that long ago too as SonyEricsson have quite a delicate clip on the plug -- if this clip breaks, then the plug won't stay attached and the device doesn't charge.
I already enjoy the benefits of wireless charging with my electric toothbrush - it sits in a base that charges it back up. There are no electrical contacts or plugs to get wet and gunky with toothpaste residue, it's just a smooth plastic ring that the toothbrush sits in and away it goes.
To have a pad that I could place any of my devices on to recharge would be incredibly convenient. I truly hope that enough manufactures adopt this standard to make it a possibility. Unfortunately with standards, the great thing about them is that there are so many to chose from.
Specialist Mac support for creative pros, Melbourne
Your cell phone pumps out about 4W on a regular basis, and you keep it in your pocket next to your junk.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Will Nintendo adopt it? Because I want a Qi Wii. And assemble it in Finland so the factory's website will be QiWii.fi
http://twitter.com/OLDTELEGRAM
Hmmm, I wonder how many companies will start making small adapters that plug into your old phone/pda/etc's power plug so they work with this new interface...
Anyway, why spell it "Qi" when the Chinese/Japanese language does not use the Latin script ?
Because "Qi" is sexy-looking and just begs for an elegant logo. "Chee" looks horrible and cheap.
Once again, you demonstrate why technology nerds should never be allowed to name any product or technology.
... and then they built the supercollider.
Most wall warts nowadays are switch mode and use almost no power when not in use.
It's called pinyin and is the standard romanisation of Chinese characters. It is used in China and therefore they DO use the "latin script".
I'll give you the logo part, it is difficult to make a logo around Chee.
But the "Sexy" part is debatable. I bet that a word that sounds like Kwee "sounds" cheap to Asian ears, while a word that sounds like Chee sounds sophisticated.I'll even bet that Chinese has a nice pictogram for Chee, while Kwee probably has none.
It is only to English speakers ear that Chee sounds cheap (mostly due to the similarity of the sounds), while Kwee sounds like greek Ki or royal (similar to Queen? ).
http://slashdot.org/submission/1062723/Cheap-mobile-data-plan?art_pos=2
Can you imagine how boring and hideous it would be if every word was spelled phonetically?
You mean like, french?
Your cell phone pumps out about 4W on a regular basis, and you keep it in your pocket next to your junk.
No, cell phones are NOT continuously pumping out 4 watts.
You are FAR off the mark with the claim of 4W.
It is more like 0.250 watts and below for your average cell phone. In fact, there are STRINGENT FCC restrictions on how much power you can put out within 20cm of your skin. Even laptops are restricted to the sub half-watt power range for their wireless and broadband cards. Usually 100mw in your Novatel broadband card.
Qi, as in the Chinese romanization of æ£.
This is the same "qi" as Taichi's 'chi'. The life energy
It's the same 'chi' as the japanese 'Ki' æ-- as in "Tenki" (weather)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qi
*Slashdot really needs to move into the modern era with support for international unicode characters...
I bet that a word that sounds like Kwee "sounds" cheap to Asian ears,
But it doesn't sound like "Kwee" it sounds like "Chee" - so it has the best of both worlds.
It is only to English speakers ear that Chee sounds cheap
I never said that "Chee" sounds cheap. I said it looks cheap. It sounds perfectly fine to my ears, and most English speakers would know the word, with a significant minority actually participating in practices that use the concept.
... and then they built the supercollider.
I forsee Witricity adapters and a slew of 3rd party knock-off components for home and travel that allow us to bathe ourselves in a continuous blanket of electromagnetic radiation 24 hours a day.
Sorry to tell you, but that's already happening from sources such as:
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
Watt is the unit of Power?
I'm sorry I'll get my coat
I reject your reality and substitute my own.
Just because it has a name that is not intuitively pronounceable. Idiots.
Yeah, just like Nintendo's latest console, which flopped because its name was both not intuitively pronounceable. Does anyone even remember the Wii?
Anyway, why spell it "Qi" when the Chinese/Japanese language does not use the Latin script ?
Because Qi is the Pinyin transliteration, and Pinyin is pretty much as close as you can get to standard. Chinese and Japanese don't use the Latin script but there most certainly do exist standards to transcribe them consistently.
It gets a little hairy with Chinese, but that's how you write it and is sexier than both "Chee" and "Chi" (the now-outmoded Wade-Giles way of transliterating it).
Great. Now whenever I see 'qi' I'll mentally pronounce it as 'aieee! *pound*'
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
Comparing the peak power of GSM to average power of this system is misleading at best (gsm transmits only 1/8 of the time due to TDM) and a lie at worst (GSM power control almost always pushes the level 10-20dB below that).
Then 2W max is on 850/900MHz, 1800/1900 has max 1W.