Intel finishing wireless recharging technology, forget the power cords

Intel is getting closer to perfecting a wireless power technology that could one day do away with power cords all together- at least for your gadgets.  Imagine simply placing your laptop on a table or surface somewhere to power and recharge it.

According to CNet, the company recently demonstrated its new technology, which uses a magnetic field to broadcast up to 60 watts of power two to three feet in all directions.  More impressive, It says it can do that losing only 25 percent of the power in transmission.  “Something like this technology could be embedded in tables and work surfaces,” said Justin Rattner, Intel’s chief technology officer, “so as soon as you put down an appropriately equipped device it would immediately begin drawing power.”

Intel is basing this technology on the research of Massachusetts Institute of Technology physicist Marin Soljacic, who pioneered the idea of wirelessly transmitting power using resonant magnetic fields.  Both Intel and MIT see the potential in the relative phenomenon known as “resonant induction,” making it possible to transmit power several feet without wires.  Appropriately, the technology is called “WiTricity” which is the combination of wireless and electricity. 

The team at Intel describes its new system as a “wireless resonant energy link,” and is experimenting with antennas less than two feet in diameter to remotely light a 60-watt light bulb by drawing energy from a power source located elsewhere.  Intel’s approach is different from similar start-ups that are introducing wireless recharging technologies, in that it doesn’t require the device to be near a base-station of any kind.  Intel’s quest is simple- make it possible to recharge a laptop computer without wires of any kind.  “From Intel’s position that seems like the thing to shoot for right now,” Smith said. The receiving antenna is about the size of something that could easily fit against the bottom of a conventional laptop computer. “It could be that cellphones and PDAs are even more compelling, but I think we are going to start with the laptop. It’s easy to dial down from laptops,” he said.

I would have thought something like this could have come along a little earlier.  If the natural “phenomenon” of resonant induction has been around forever, and we’ve known about it, why hasn’t anyone put it to use?  I understand there are some logistics to consider, but if the basis for a technology stems from a scientific fact- it shouldn’t be hard to figure out how to make it usable in the real-world.  If anyone can do it, the folks at MIT and Intel have my vote.

• New Intel Atom family of tiny low-power processors
• Intel UMPC runs Linux
• Intel and OLPC make love, not war
• Wireless Electricity? Tesla would be proud
• Sony develops a way to send electricity over air to power a TV