Wireless Power Group Sees Standard Within 6 Months 152
alphadogg writes "The group developing a standard for wireless charging expects to complete its first specification within six months, opening the door for makers of cell phones, digital cameras and other devices to bring compatible products to market. Wireless charging lets consumers place gadgets on a mat that plugs into a wall outlet, and have the devices recharge automatically without needing to plug in each one. Apart from the gee-whiz factor, it's supposed to make life more convenient by letting people walk into their home or office, toss their gadgets onto a mat to recharge and forget about them."
Not going to happen... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:opportunities (Score:3, Insightful)
Pointless (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't really see the point. As long as you have to put the device in a specific location anyway, I don't see that it's much of an improvement over having to connect it with your charger. You have to connect it with a location just the same, with this new tech, just the plug is different (a pad vs a plug).
Wake me when you have a tech that charges my mobile from the moment I step in my home door and leave my mobile in my jacket pocket hanging in the foyer.
Until that use case can be satisfied, I think this is just the same-old, same-old.
Sure to be a hit (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Pointless (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not about laziness. If it was about laziness, I'd jump on the new tech because it saves me the "arduous" step of *plugging in* (gasp). Instead I'm planning on staying with the far more demanding step of actually plugging in.
It's about forgetfulness. As I grow older and more senile, I plain and simple don't *remember* to put my devices at their designated charging locations every single night. If there was a tech that charged my devices no matter where I left them inside the confines of my house, that would something that would produce a useful value add for me.
Eliminating the plugging in phase does not produce a useful value add because I'm not so lazy that plugging in is some huge obstacle.
Re:opportunities (Score:4, Insightful)
Do babies come with Induction coils?
A few [wikipedia.org].
A guy I worked with his son had broken the antenna on his implant in the playground at school. They could get it working by squeezing his head in just the right way to close the break in the antenna wire.
This should be BANNED! (Score:5, Insightful)
OK does any one else see this as completely nuts?
At the moment the power output is relatively low. 5 watts ish. Lets think about this. This is BROADCAST POWER. It's going to leak into everything around it. There will be no such thing as 95% efficient transfer of power. So where does this residual power go. Well into everything around it. The closer something is the more it will receive.
Very simple chemistry here. Entropy increase with energy. Entropy can simple be defined as the desire of a substance to reach it most random and natural state. ( There is probably a more accurate definition than that. ) AKA Entropy is all about things BREAKING DOWN. So if we add energy to a "thing" it ultimately will break down faster.
I'm sorry but I don't want to be walking around in yet more energy radiation fields. Especially one designed to transmit POWER AKA ENERGY.
5 watts gives way to 10 watts gives away to 25 watts gives away to stupid amounts of power. As "improvements" and legislation allow higher and higher output.
This also strikes me as the most un-green tech out there. Simply a device that radiates POWER.