wireless electricity
While everything else seems to be going wireless, one of the few things that keeps us attached to cable and plugs is power. It has been a long-time dream of many to transfer energy from one location to another. Some see powerstations in space as a way to still our hunger for energy on earth by beaming it in. (space, table to recharge, kind of osmosis). But also on earth, in our kitchens and living rooms, we dream about powering electronic domestic appliances and gadgets without using power cords. A research team led by Professor Takao Someya at the University of Tokyo’s Engineering Department developed sheets of plastic, flexible electronics able to transmit energy to any appliance that touches its surface, provided it is equipped with a coil and energy-harvesting circuitry. One sheet senses where the appliance is, the other provides power directly and only to that location.
The age-old principle of electromagnetic induction allows electricity to travel over short distances between coils. Assistant professor Marin Soljacic and his team at the MIT’s Department of Physics and Research Laboratory of Electronics took it a bit further and looked into non-radiative energy transfer over larger distances. Now, as they recently succeeded in wirelessly powering a 60W light bulb over a distance of 2 metres without any contact, WiTricity was born.
The future starts looking ever more wireless, ever more ‘cloud’-like (cf. dataclouds, powerclouds, etc.).
Via Slashdot
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