Future Desks to Charge Gadgets Wirelessly

IronMan writes "Future desks may allow us to charge our phones, iPods, PDAs and other gadgets wirelessly. Office equipment maker Herman Miller is one of the first companies to license the eCoupled inductive coupling technology from Fulton Innovation, Engadget reports. The desk will allows wireless transfer of energy through a magnetic field. Motorola is working together with eCoupled, but still is not sure when the first consumer devices with this technology will appear on the market. From the article: 'Of course, cordless charging isn't an entirely new concept, with HP recently showing off some of its own ideas for juiced-up furniture, and Splashpower talking up its charge-on-contact system for a few years now. We guess we'll just have to wait and see if this new power-happy desk becomes the same status symbol for the Web 2.0 crowd that Herman Miller's Aeron chair was back in Web 1.0 days -- assuming we haven't moved on to Web 3.0 by the time the desk actually comes out, that is.'"

Health concerns

Is anyone worried about what the effects might be on the person sitting at the desk? Long term exposure to magnetic radiation may cause cancer...

Re:Health concerns

Your opinion, as stated, gives the impression of there being no evidence whatsoever, due to the fact that "you" have not "heard" of any harmfull medical effects due to magnetic fields, and total ignorance (and scepticism) of any potential mechanism at all, which is far from a balanced reflection of the actual evidence at this time in the scientific community.

OK, how about this: Over the last 100+ years of exposure to magnetic fields, the closest anyone has come to finding a statistical link between low-grade magnetic fields and any health problems is the now-famous study showing a correlation between leukemia and living under power lines--- but the notion of a causal link between the two is spurious at best. Studies of MRI technician, aluminum foundry workers, and electrical linesmen have shown no health effects that can be linked to their exposure to magnetic fields, and they are exposed to fields many times greater than you'd ever see from an inductively coupling charging system. Studies so far [nih.gov] have shown that there is little negative reaction by organic systems to magnetic fields.

The problem here is that you are asking for proof of a negative. You see, in science, when someone asserts the condition X may have effect Y out of the blue like that, the only proper response is "I have seen no evidence of this, so unless you can show evidence of a link, I must assume it to be false". Claiming "just because it's not proven doesn't mean it's not true" is foolish and childlike. Claims must be supported by proof. The burden is not on the rest of the world to disprove. Science is built on facts, not speculations. Logical thinking--- it works!

It still amazes me how many people there are out there that apparently need this explained to them.

Re:Health concerns

Yeah, but can I expect a positive or negative effect from the tin foil in my hat?

Re:Health concerns

But I thought magnetic waves were supposed to heal injuries [indiangyan.com], not cause them! You are destroying my worldview -- you must be one of those scienti... I mean terrorists that are eradicating the American way of life!
Shoo! SHOO!

No more shopping online.

Or, at least, no more shopping at stores in town after laying your credit card down on your desk while shopping online.

wireless transfer of energy??

Wireless transfer of energy through a magnetic field, is SO 1998.

No, really, my toothbrush does it.

"Not exactly new"

The wireless transfer of energy through magnetic fields is called electromagnetic induction, and it's been a well-known phenomenon since 1831. It's also currently used the world over: see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformer [wikipedia.org]

I guess this'll put a nail in the CRT coffin.

And the cassette tape, floppy disk, microcassette, LTO-3 Backup, etc...

not to mention pacemakers, insulin pumps...

Old technology

I've been charging my dog's "invisible fence" collar this way for years. Actually, with that technology, it doesn't even have to touch. It just has to get close to the charger (within an inch or two). Works great. My dog's zapper collar is 100% sealed shut, making it 100% waterproof.

Hooray!

Forget about my desk charging things. My coffee will never get cold again!

Web 4.27.1@#$!

I can't seriously be the only one tired of hearing about Web x.0.

No thanks.

Please give us rather a working wireless connection from our homes to our office desks.

Sheesh!

Now they're expecting me to carry a desk around whenever I need to charge things? No thanks. I'll just carry a wall-wart and plug it into any of the billion+ outlets scattered throughout North America.

Imagine...

...if every electrical outlet had a different type of prongs depending on the brand of plug you bought.

Hell, you don't even have to imagine. We already live with the incompatibility of low voltage power connectors... Only now instead of replacing an adapter when we get a device from a different manufacturer, we can buy all new office furniture! Joy!

This technology is useless until the patents expire and building and electric codes require a specific version of the technology.

...uhm

"Wireless charging is nothing new, HP..." ...or Tesla...

health issues?

Aren't there some health concerns to having your work space set up like that?

Wireless mouse

The first thing to come into my mind is a wireless mouse that gets power through the mouse pad. Wouldn't even need batteries, probably. Just capacitors.

efficiency, inefficiency, personal responsibility

I'm curious about the efficiency of charging batteries with this technology. Batteries are already have an inherent level of inefficiency, so it seems to me that potentially adding another layer of energy loss to battery-powered gadgets is unfortunate and disappointing at best, environmentally irresponsible and a choice to contribute to the spoiling of Earth at worst.

I have a watch

that does the same thing. it sits on a little charger, and there are no contacts, just some molded plastic, and it charges relatively quickly. It is pretty neat actually. I'm surprised there are all these articles featuring this technology that has been around for some time now. It may be at a larger scale, but theres little difference between the wireless charging technology now and the same technology tomorrow.

I guess this means...

...you couldn't use a magnetic drive anywhere near it?

Argh, I thought of this ages ago.

Argh. I need to learn to actually act on some of the cool ideas I think of. Ages ago, I built a prototype of a system like this. My idea involved standard AA, AAA, and other size batteries with inductive charging circuits built into each cell. The idea being that you'd then be able to trivially retrofit it in any device.

My idea was just to make a generic pad that could be affixed to the bottom of any desk, countertop, shelf, etc.

Ah well, I need to learn to act on my ideas before someone else does. Same thing with those persistance of vision clocks available at Spencer Gifts and the like. Built one of those back in the 80s, and never did anything with it. But this idea has for more potential than a clock. More power to them for running with it, I guess.

Fulton Innovation

Could they be somehow related to this guy [rochester.edu]? If they are, I hate to think what's in store.

What I want...

is a wideband power converter on my phone/laptop/camera, etc. that takes all the stray EM radiation that everyone else is leaking into the environment and uses it to charge my devices, thus saving me money...

Maybe with an optional tinfoil hat plus charger lead that tops up my batteries at the same time as keeping the thought police out of my head. ;)