Ah, so should I assume there are no platter-based HDDs in the vicinity?
SDD FTW!
(ooh and what about pace-makers?)
This has been covered ad nausium, best read up before assuming things.
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WiTricity Demos Apple's Wireless iMac Charging Station Concept
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This has been covered ad nausium, best read up before assuming things.
energy is directly proportional to magnetism. Every energized wire produces a corresponding magnetic field. The more energy going through it, the more magnetism.
Really I think this all comes down to a question of scale. Scientists found that when you fed mice/rats a year's worth of saccharin in an hour, they would develop cancer. They put cancer labels everywhere, and then they finally thought better and removed the labels. The question here is: are the typical (elevated) magnetic fields that people are going to be exposed to here dangerous. They have to come up with the PROPER tests to see. I'm sure at some point it's going to become cancerous... the question is at what point?
I could see technology like this catching on in big ways.
I'm sitting at my office computer right now, and my iPhone is in my pocket -- and when I take it out of my pocket, it sits on the desk. It would be easy to place a charging emitter somewhere on or under my desk where the iPhone would be able to receive power as I'm sitting here working.
You could put one in the car somewhere under the dashboard to charge your phone while you drive.
If the standard became universal, you could start seeing them appear in public places. Underneath the tables at your favourite restaurant or coffee shop, perhaps, or inside the cabin of an airplane or bus.
I can see a future where you could use this to constantly top up charge in any cell phone, tablet, laptop, digital camera, etc. anytime you sit down with one for a length of time.
I'm sitting at my office computer right now, and my iPhone is in my pocket -- and when I take it out of my pocket, it sits on the desk. It would be easy to place a charging emitter somewhere on or under my desk where the iPhone would be able to receive power as I'm sitting here working.
You could put one in the car somewhere under the dashboard to charge your phone while you drive.
If the standard became universal, you could start seeing them appear in public places. Underneath the tables at your favourite restaurant or coffee shop, perhaps, or inside the cabin of an airplane or bus.
I can see a future where you could use this to constantly top up charge in any cell phone, tablet, laptop, digital camera, etc. anytime you sit down with one for a length of time.
Cancer Risk?
There are many variables involved in electro-magnetic vs. cancer. Every person is different, and reacts diferent to everyone else. Electromagnetic radiateion is everywhere. The electric wires in your home and everywhere else (there's a very high correlation between miscarriages and closeness to high-tension power lines), computer monitors, your cell phone, X-Rays, and your microwave oven. Risks revolve around the strength of the EM-radiation, it's frequency, and your suseptability. I get a kick out of people complaining about the 1/2 watt of "radiation" from their cell phones being so dangerous ( BTW, the more radiation from your iPhone, the better connection you'll have), but won't complain about the 350,000 watt TV antenna sitting a few blocks from their house.
There are many variables involved in electro-magnetic vs. cancer. Every person is different, and reacts diferent to everyone else. Electromagnetic radiateion is everywhere. The electric wires in your home and everywhere else (there's a very high correlation between miscarriages and closeness to high-tension power lines), computer monitors, your cell phone, X-Rays, and your microwave oven. Risks revolve around the strength of the EM-radiation, it's frequency, and your suseptability. I get a kick out of people complaining about the 1/2 watt of "radiation" from their cell phones being so dangerous ( BTW, the more radiation from your iPhone, the better connection you'll have), but won't complain about the 350,000 watt TV antenna sitting a few blocks from their house.
Two concerns
First, as others have noted, I'm concerned about the health effects. I doubt this has been studied as much as cell phone radiation, which after all these years, is still up in the air. MRIs, another tech based on magnets, isn't something I'd want to hang around (someone with more knowledge please correct me on that).
Second, I'm concerned over the environmental cost. This doesn't sound like a very efficient way of powering up your devices. Convenient, yes. Efficient, doubtful. I would think it takes longer to charge up a device this way. Also, the power hub would have to spread its wireless charging magic all over, not just in a direct line, like a power cord does.
I'm no expert on this at all, so I'm curious how this will evolve into a consumer product. I'd love to charge everything wirelessly, but not at the expense of my health or the environment.
First, as others have noted, I'm concerned about the health effects. I doubt this has been studied as much as cell phone radiation, which after all these years, is still up in the air. MRIs, another tech based on magnets, isn't something I'd want to hang around (someone with more knowledge please correct me on that).
Second, I'm concerned over the environmental cost. This doesn't sound like a very efficient way of powering up your devices. Convenient, yes. Efficient, doubtful. I would think it takes longer to charge up a device this way. Also, the power hub would have to spread its wireless charging magic all over, not just in a direct line, like a power cord does.
I'm no expert on this at all, so I'm curious how this will evolve into a consumer product. I'd love to charge everything wirelessly, but not at the expense of my health or the environment.
i don't know how "safe" this could be. sounds to me like a cancer risk, power over the air should be bad for the human body much like living near power lines is bad.
I wouldn't use this technology. to have a pad to put something on that is limited in dispersion is much more attractive than something that would charge energy in the air in the area a person would be sitting at and using for long periods of time
I wouldn't use this technology. to have a pad to put something on that is limited in dispersion is much more attractive than something that would charge energy in the air in the area a person would be sitting at and using for long periods of time
I knew I shouldn't have read this read. It's a depressing as the one a couple if weeks ago also about WiTricity. Lots of people yelling "cancer" without understanding the technology. If anyone wants to read about this research here is the original paper. I bet the people yelling "cancer" don't understand any of it.
Apart from the ones needed to power the charger.
I don't see any real point to this...is plugging a cable in to our iOS devices so stressful? This looks like tech for people with more money than sense.
Yeah I'm not sure it is safe either. They probably need to do a lot more testing on this.
They probably need to turn the charging on when you are away from the computer. Sorry can't watch the video to see the process.
This is the kind of thing that could be amazing. If they can get it done in such a way that you can just chuck in replacement AA batteries without any other modifications to a device then it'll take off for sure. I'll immediately throw a wad of cash at them to replace all of the rechargeable batteries I have in devices throughout the house.
Is carrying an iPod and a phone around at the same time so stressful? The iPhone looks like tech for people with more money than sense to me.
If history has taught us anything, its that Apple knows what we need better than we do
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/9A5274d)
"WiTricity is based on the research from MIT's labs..."
Which is taken directly from the burried research of Nikola Tesle from over a century ago.
"WiTricity is based on the research from MIT's labs..."
Which is taken directly from the burried research of Nikola Tesle from over a century ago.
Yeah... except sparks don't fly and your hair stand on end when you're by the device.
And years after that we'll look back and laugh that people used mice and keyboards.
After taking a hiatus from the tech news & rumor scene, this is my first encounter with the technology. How would anyone in my situation know that it's been covered "ad nauseum" without a snarky forumer to point it out?
I am suddenly reminded of why I took the hiatus.
After taking a hiatus from the tech news & rumor scene, this is my first encounter with the technology. How would anyone in my situation know that it's been covered "ad nauseum" without a snarky forumer to point it out?
I am suddenly reminded of why I took the hiatus.
Macrumors is a different place since the Intel chips were introduced.
shrug.