Wireless Power

I am sitting at this conference with a great wifi network. No ethernet cables needed. No software needed. Just boot up and your are on the Net. It's great.

But there is this power strip at my feet. I've got to get my power cable, wind it around the table, reach underneath the guy sitting next to me, and plug it in to get power to my computer.

Sure my battery works fine, but it will slowly lose its charge, and even with improvements in battery technology, there is never enough life on the battery.

So I'd like someone to invent wireless power. It should work just like WiFi. I don't know if its possible given the laws of physics, but I'd sure like to find out. I'd invest in it.

So if its possible, please let me know. You can email me at the address in the Email Me link.

Comments

[greg.org]

After entertaining myself with the idea of a bird getting fried in mid-air when it flies in between your laptop and a wireless power router, I Googled wireless power generation.

Turns out it's one of the as-yet-unrealized promises of the work of Nikolai Tesla, the alternate universe's Thomas Edison.

It also turns out, there's a Tesla Energy Conference next month in Washington, DC, where what look like the cream of the Tesla-ite crop of researchers is presenting. Reservations are probably still available.

http://users.erols.com/iri/tesla.htm

PS Interesting weblog. Best of luck.

[Fred Wilson]

Thanks so much for this info. I will look into this conference

[simon]

it was only a week ago ... i thought of this same principle . i was sitting at the airport and really wanted battery power and thought ... hey wireless power ... then i thought .... YERRRR RITE ....

anyways kewl concept ... ohh and interesting weblog ...

[Lee Greenhouse]

I flew home yesterday only to have my laptop run out of power about an hour into the flight and much too soon. Solar and wind are potential alternative power sources, but most conference rooms don't get enough to make them feasible. But I was wondering about harnessing hot air since most of the conference rooms I've been in generate plenty of that....

[Mike]

Now we're getting somewhere...

[Chevsky]

Some of you might find this release interesting...

http://www.st.com/stonline/press/news/year2003/t1355h.htm

[Chris Yu]

It exists today although nothing for laptops yet. Take a look at an electric toothbrush like a sonicare. You charge it by placing it into a stand that has no electrical contacts. See http://www.nerdvest.com/elec/Electromagnetic-Power-Coupling.html for more details on how it works.

Of course distance is a huge factor here as well as the threat of electromagnets deleting hard disks, but it might be a start.

[greg.org]

Nice timing.

The Times had an article yesterday about Tesla's wireless electricity startup having to close down in 1901 when the VC pulled out.

Some guy named J.P. Morgan.

http://nytimes.com/2003/10/02/technology/circuits/02powe.html

[Susan Solomon]

Hilarious... and genious!

[Dave]

With all the devices I seem to have to carry around these days from mobile phones to PDAs to Bluetooth headsets to laptops, wireless power would definitely come in handy.

But let's solve the bigger problem. We (as a civilization) need to make a huge breakthrough in our sources of energy. Remember the "cold fusion" craze 10-12 years ago. That's what I mean. We need to harness the energy in something as simple as a hydorgen atom.

Not only would that make my laptop battery last about 10,000 years, but think about automobiles, houses, space travel, etc. not to mention the impact on world politics with regards to oil wars and the like.

We know this is possible, but don't know how to do it yet. That's where our research (and VC) dollars should be going.

My $0.02.

[Mohit Mahendra]

Funny how one thing triggers off the same idea in different people's heads...I was thinking about wireless electricity too when I first began using a WiFi network at CMU's campus 3 years back. At some point in the future, with very low power consuming devices, so that they can be powered with small currents transmitted at low enough voltages so as not to create electromagnetic hazards to life and other existing infrastructure (communication, magnetic storage..), I suppose it is possible...But too many if's in there !

[Red Hedgehog]

hello? earth to whoever you are...there is wireless power! I have it in my laptop!!! You should look around on ebay or something you could probably buy one for yourself.

[scotty the body]

Haha! I went to a private little liberal arts college in, of all places, Colorado Springs, Colorado. There, they have the "Tesla Museum." Tesla was an eccentric but brilliant inventor and scientist who wound up getting run over by a car in NYC.

In Colorado, he was working on wireless power. The way it worked, I will tell you in a moment, but first, let me see if I can remember the story. My facts may be reversed.

Edison and Tesla were in competition. Tesla had invented DC, and Edison had invented AC. The national standard, or some standard, was to be adopted. Edison used to travel around the country by train electrocuting monkeys to death to illustrate the dangers of DC, while Tesla would sit underneath a Tesla Coil to demonstrate the harmless nature of DC. There's a very famous photograph of him sitting underneath one, with lighting arcing all over the room, and he sits calmly in a chair and reads the paper or a book or something. One of them (I forget which) used to sit around and shock monkeys with Mark Twain, but that's a different story.

Anyway, according to the Tesla people, DC is far safer than AC, but Edison won anyway.

But back to wireless power. Tesla's idea was to shoot power into the ground, so that one could simply drive a stake into the ground to tap the power source. He even proved this worked from his laboratory in Cripple Creek, Colorado by lighting some lights via the ground some 15 or so miles away.

Tesla is a very interesting character to learn a bit about. He was a freak on wheels, with phobias of all sorts, and couldn't dine with anyone else because it interrupted his favorite activity, which was computing the volume and remaining volume of all the beverages and food on the table. He'd take a sip, and recompute.

I wonder if VCs would have backed Tesla. I suppose if the financials were there… but man.

If anyone’s ever in Colorado Springs, I highly recommend a visit. They don’t get a whole lot of interest, from what I could tell, and you’ll probably get a personalized, narrated tour, which is what happened to us when we stopped by in 1993.

[scotty the body]

oh, i invented a wireless power method, but I don't have the smarts to carry it of. My idea is to use lasers or radio to stimulate some type of chemical or physical receiver that, in turn, via the reaction, generates power. haha!

[Haudy Kazemi]

Ummm Red Hedgehog you did get some of your facts reversed, just like you thought...

Tesla was the proponent of AC power transmission and AC motors. Edison was the DC guy, and he held live demonstrations on animals of the 'dangers' of AC power vs his 'safe' DC. Edison wanted to scare people away from Tesla's technology. Later when Tesla had been beat down economically, Edison ended up using AC power transmission anyway because transformers were so much easier to use with AC than distributing high voltage DC all over the place.

Tesla doesn't get the attention he deserves, and Edison gets more than his share.

[Haudy Kazemi]

Ummm Red Hedgehog you did get some of your facts reversed, just like you thought...

Tesla was the proponent of AC power transmission and AC motors. Edison was the DC guy, and he held live demonstrations on animals of the 'dangers' of AC power vs his 'safe' DC. Edison wanted to scare people away from Tesla's technology. Later when Tesla had been beat down economically, Edison ended up using AC power transmission anyway because transformers were so much easier to use with AC than distributing high voltage DC all over the place.

Tesla doesn't get the attention he deserves, and Edison gets more than his share.

[anish]

this is a very good article

[Darien]

It's close...

http://splashpower.com/

[SAM]

you guys are pretty stupid!a guy called von westing house made a wierless power current.BUT THE STUPID THING IS IT ONLEY HAD A HALFMILE RADIES. SO THAT IS STUPID.

[Frank Lyon]

It is closer then you think.. there is a company in florida that is working on a laser WPT (wireless power transfer) system that also incorporates wireless data/video streaming abilities. This system would be connected to a traditional power source. And has currently a 20km distance (tested) ability.

Note: Boeing and NASA are also looking at this same tranfer method.

[hopper]

you are an idiot, if you were to put a big enough electomagnetic waves to get the current you are talking about you would have a onece use computer, because the second time you would go to use it you would be dead

[Drake]

Wireless Power IS possable, and it's even available flying through the air right now. The problem is effiency in harnessing the currently existing radio waves. This works on the EXACT same principle as Solar power. The difference is your using a different frequency of light. Yes, radio waves ARE light waves, just not visable to the human eye, but photons are photons, and all you need is something to properly convert the photon's energy into electrisity. Don't think there is enough energy in the lower spectrums that arn't visable? Well, think on this, Microwaves are a lower energy level of light then visable light yet have enough energy when interacting with water to seriously heat it up. (And THAT is how your food cooks)

[Jonathan]

I think the concept here is "wireless" power, not necessarily via radio waves...great distances etc.

There was a company I read about in Maximum PC who will be releasing something called "Hot Pads" (or something like that). These pads have some sort of waves being generated via magnetic fields (apparently safe for hard drives), which you can set a laptop on and it charges your battery. They were making pads which could latch onto the bottom of your laptop giving you endless power.

Not sure what has come of it, but it's out there somewhere being developed. Now streaming every device in my household wireless energy via the air from some hotspot 40 miles away is a long ways off. But if you can get rid of my laptop cable and printer cable via some sort of latch on pad, I'm all for it.

[Jen]

My brother came across your website a few days after we were talking on the phone and thinking about how we could invent this wireless charging system, perhaps via some sort of radio waves. Anyway, he's the MIT smarty pants in the family and apparently he found that both NASA and a company called "Splashpower" have already brooched this field. Oh well, we'll have to try to get rich some other way - oh wait, is Splashpower public? :)

[Calvin George]

Wireless power is already here its called solar power.
Same type of energy as wifi. Its just at a high frequency.

Solar cells that work in the dark are also possible.

But of cost no one wants to invest in energy alternatives.

go figure