An Open Standard For Wireless Charging?

Posted by timothy on Tuesday October 30, 2012 @12:51AM from the tall-skinny-latte-power-surcharge dept.

Charging portable devices without needing to carry a power adapter sounds handy, and it's slowly getting closer to widespread use. IPAQ2000 writes that AT&T, Google and Starbucks announced yesterday "that they have joined the Power Matters Alliance (PMA). Founded by Powermat Technologies and Procter & Gamble, the PMA's Honorary Chairman is Google's Vint Cerf – one of the fathers of the Internet — and its board now also includes AT&T, Duracell, Google and Starbucks. The U.S. Government's Energy Star and Federal Communications Commission – both PMA members — are board observers." (How does Starbucks come into it? They're "testing PMA-compatible Wireless Charging Spots in select Boston stores.")

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Convenient but inefficient by Coisiche · 2012-10-30 01:01 · Score: 5, Insightful

It seems slightly strange that when a lot of effort is devoted to improving power efficiency this is championed when it's just favouring convenience over efficiency. Maybe one day people will regret that.