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WiTricity Demos Apple's Wireless iMac Charging Station Concept
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you guys should watch his other video. they talk about the efficiency as 50% which as he points out is vastly cheaper than using disposable batteries plus fewer batteries in land fills. he also talks about the magnetic field only being about the strength of the earth field so its not extremely strong and doesn't affect anything except if it is able to resonate. the resonance of the signal and receiver is what allows the power to transmit
you guys should watch his other video. they talk about the efficiency as 50% which as he points out is vastly cheaper than using disposable batteries plus fewer batteries in land fills. he also talks about the magnetic field only being about the strength of the earth field so its not extremely strong and doesn't affect anything except if it is able to resonate. the resonance of the signal and receiver is what allows the power to transmit
Ha! I see what you did there...
We evolved in the presence of EM radiation. We will continue to do so, whether this harms us or not. The people who are best resistant are the ones who will survive and continue the human race....
What's the video?
I just get a black frame and the grey cogs turning in the center, forever loading. I've got Flash 10.3 beta running. Wonderful, perfect, anti-monopolistic closed/open Flash.
I just get a black frame and the grey cogs turning in the center, forever loading. I've got Flash 10.3 beta running. Wonderful, perfect, anti-monopolistic closed/open Flash.
my iphone becomes quite hot when its charging, it would get uncomfortable very fast if I had my phone in my pocket while it was wirelessly charging, lets hope they think of that lol
Nikola Tesla did this 100 years ago. A few meters? Palour tricks for an electricity genius like Tesla. He demonstrated this feat at 26 miles away.
He theorized that it could work globally. If a genius like Tesla didn't find it dangerous, I'm not worried.
I really think on a small scale it's good. You have somewhere on the wall a power socket like thingy attached which powers things like mice, bluetooth keyboards, phones, charge your camera, iPad etc. For things like that i really think it can be great. Imagine you need to charge your camera, iPad, iPhone and batteries for your Magic Trackpad/Mouse, how many adapters and wires you have to connect to how many sockets in the wall? or you could charge your mobile gear, small devices just by having them at home in some specific place with no wires. Nerdgasm guaranteed.
Long time lurker, first time poster, but I have to elaborate a bit here since I have some background and have been researching Tesla's work for a long time. It is true that what WiTricity is doing is awesome but ponder this:
Tesla, over a hundred years ago, built a working prototype for a giant tower in upstate New York that was to be hooked up to the power plant (which he also designed) at niagra falls. This tower could beam wireless electricity across huge distances with no adverse health effects, since the EM waves being emitted are tuned longitudinal pulsed (DC) instead of transverse (AC) in nature (which is why high tension AC lines give people cancer).
Tesla built an electric car which he drove around the area that was powered by this wireless electricity and had no onboard charge carrier. Unfortunately, his financial backers at the time had no way to "put a meter" on wireless usage so they went with the AC distribution system instead so they could charge the plebes for their energy usage in a metered fashion.
Unfortunate side effect of our economically obsessed society... Over a hundred years later, we get excited we can power our keyboards and mice without batteries...
Tesla, over a hundred years ago, built a working prototype for a giant tower in upstate New York that was to be hooked up to the power plant (which he also designed) at niagra falls. This tower could beam wireless electricity across huge distances with no adverse health effects, since the EM waves being emitted are tuned longitudinal pulsed (DC) instead of transverse (AC) in nature (which is why high tension AC lines give people cancer).
Tesla built an electric car which he drove around the area that was powered by this wireless electricity and had no onboard charge carrier. Unfortunately, his financial backers at the time had no way to "put a meter" on wireless usage so they went with the AC distribution system instead so they could charge the plebes for their energy usage in a metered fashion.
Unfortunate side effect of our economically obsessed society... Over a hundred years later, we get excited we can power our keyboards and mice without batteries...
Some thoughts:
1) This is inherently wasteful of electrical power because the energy is transfered out spherically. Even if you shape the sphere using wave guide or other technologies you are still losing a lot of the transmitted energy. e.g., if you need 100 watts of charging done you'll need to put out 400 watts of power, or possibly a lot more. That's bad. Remember the idea of energy efficiency, global warming, conservation, pollution, etc?
2) Speaking of pollution, the energy that is not picked up by the receiver and stored keeps going outward and is electromatic pollution. Not good.
3) Speaking of not good, this is adding one more possible source of radiation to our environment. Bummer dude when we find out 20 years down the road that it caused cancer in all those millions (billions?) of users. Pity that...
I think I'll let some other guinea pigs sit in the radiation field for the next few decades. I would prefer to have a 'clutter' of wires charging my devices and minimize the electromagnetic clutter. More efficient, less pollution, safer.
By the way, don't sit with one of those in your lap frying your iBalls. No, not your eyeballs.
1) This is inherently wasteful of electrical power because the energy is transfered out spherically. Even if you shape the sphere using wave guide or other technologies you are still losing a lot of the transmitted energy. e.g., if you need 100 watts of charging done you'll need to put out 400 watts of power, or possibly a lot more. That's bad. Remember the idea of energy efficiency, global warming, conservation, pollution, etc?
2) Speaking of pollution, the energy that is not picked up by the receiver and stored keeps going outward and is electromatic pollution. Not good.
3) Speaking of not good, this is adding one more possible source of radiation to our environment. Bummer dude when we find out 20 years down the road that it caused cancer in all those millions (billions?) of users. Pity that...
I think I'll let some other guinea pigs sit in the radiation field for the next few decades. I would prefer to have a 'clutter' of wires charging my devices and minimize the electromagnetic clutter. More efficient, less pollution, safer.
By the way, don't sit with one of those in your lap frying your iBalls. No, not your eyeballs.
Nikola Tesla did this 100 years ago. A few meters? Palour tricks for an electricity genius like Tesla. He demonstrated this feat at 26 miles away.
Tesla didn't know about the cancer risks. Neither did Marie Curie. Remember her?
Actually, the energy is self focusing as it seeks out its tuned receptor antenna. It's a very complicated electronics theory discussion but suffice to say that by tuning an RLC Circuit sympathetically between a receiver and transmitter you can effectively "steer" longitudinal wave energy even through solid objects and around corners to its intended destination.
Keep in mind that this system is designed to largely replace batteries, which are an environmental disaster. Even if this is inefficient, I'm pretty sure it wil still be leagues better than the batteries it would replace.
Did he really just hold down the power button to turn the computer off?... God I hate people who do that. Then they complain about problems a month later likely due to corruption caused by dirty shutdowns... Oh well.
Ya, I think everyone should be forced to use the "init 6" command, too bad it seems disabled in OSX.
Forgive me if I get this wrong (I'm not an electrical engineer) but I don't think this would cause harm to humans unless you consisted mainly of weakly bonded electrons (like copper). I wonder what effect, if any, it would have on people with metal in thier body...like me and my knee. We're exposed to so much already that I don't think this one will be the one that frys our brain noodles. We'd be better off getting rid of double quarter pounders with cheese first.
My concern, like other posters have said, is the potential waste of energy. If you had a plate in the wall of a room that would power several devices within distance your tendancy would be to leave it on all the time. Is it constantly using energy in order to resonate or does it only use energy when there is an object near enough to it that induces a load?
My concern, like other posters have said, is the potential waste of energy. If you had a plate in the wall of a room that would power several devices within distance your tendancy would be to leave it on all the time. Is it constantly using energy in order to resonate or does it only use energy when there is an object near enough to it that induces a load?
Exactly.
If you don't understand the physics behind the witricity, and the science behind the medicine... then please do not waste space in the thread with posts that contribute NOTHING to the discussion.
If all you have to post is "oh boy I hope this is safe", then DON'T POST ANYTHING.
Tesla is vindicated. In mini-form. Tesla wanted to make a worldwide series of towers that would magnetize or "wave" the atmosphere to provide unlimited wireless power for everyone across the globe for "pennies a year" (if I remember the quote).
Now we are learning to transmit small, home-use, amounts of electricity across a half-dozen feet of air. Awesome. If you watch his videos, you see that guy transmitting enough to power about 1000 Watts of light bulbs. Impressive. What's an iMac use? 300 Watts max?
Maybe by 2020 we won't need wiring in houses aside from large-draw appliances like stoves and fridges, and such.
Now we are learning to transmit small, home-use, amounts of electricity across a half-dozen feet of air. Awesome. If you watch his videos, you see that guy transmitting enough to power about 1000 Watts of light bulbs. Impressive. What's an iMac use? 300 Watts max?
Maybe by 2020 we won't need wiring in houses aside from large-draw appliances like stoves and fridges, and such.
You have it right at the end of your post, where there is no energy used unless a load is detected. There is digital switching controlling the oscillation but again, it is based on an RLC circuit (the L being induction) and there is very little wasted power in this scenario since it's very nearfield . Where they are quoting 50% efficiency they are being conservative... my guess is gen 2 and 3 shipping products will be far more efficient.
By comparison your power company of choice loses at least that percentage getting the amperage from their generator to your house. Most of the cheap AC/DC power supplies for your gadgets are fairly inefficient as well and burn a lot of energy as heat due to the use of cheap transformers.
My guess is they (WiTricity or whoever comes after them) will eventually set up a home power station that will work with vacuums, hair dryers, you name it (a decade or so down the road) but they chose to start small because they will need time to work out the MAC issues needed to deal with individual devices not being able to steal power from their next door neighbors, as people have often done with tuned antennas in their backyards stealing from the power company for years...
This.
The only reason why I don't use wireless keyboards/mice is because I don't want to keep changing batteries.
It's just as safe as going outside swimming in tons of RF spectrum...
GPS/satellite signals, CDMA, iDEN, HAM, CB, WiFi, GSM are around us whether we like it or not.
I don't think most of the technologies are more than a couple milliwatts, whereas these technologies must transfer watts of energy?