Wireless Power Demonstrated

Necroloth and other readers sent in the story of Witricity's latest demo at the TED Global conference in Oxford, UK. The company is developing a system that can deliver power to devices without the need for wires. The idea is not new — electrical pioneers Thomas Edison and Nicola Tesla assumed that power would be delivered wirelessly. The BBC quotes the inventor behind Witricity's tech as saying that Tesla and Edison "...couldn't imagine dragging this vast infrastructure of metallic wires across every continent." eWeek Europe notes some hurdles the technology must overcome: "The 2007 experiment it is based on had an efficiency of only around 45 percent, but [Witricity's CEO] promised power delivered wirelessly would start out 15 percent more expensive than wires, and improve on that." Intel has also demonstrated wireless charging.

This is old stuff

[hannson]

Thinkgeek has sold wireless extension cords for a long time [thinkgeek.com]. I wonder if Witricity has solved the issue about domestic cats getting in between the source and destination...

Re:Thomas Edison ???

[Heed00]

Bah. He came up with that cool electric hammer that was recently discovered as well as the extra hinged legs on chairs to stop you falling over if you lean back too far.