Intel Demonstrates New Wireless Power Technology
Intel has demonstrated its new wireless power technology at this years IDF.
The technology demonstrated comprised of two metal arrays that connect to a power amplifier, the arrays resonate and establish a link of energy between each other.
The power is then transmitted from one metal array to the other. The technology isn’t exactly new but Intel have achieved the highest efficiency with the technology to date with 75% efficiency when transferring 60 watts of power over a distance of two feet.
The technology isn’t ready to charge your favourite gadgets just yet, but as with anything Intel does I am sure it wont be more than a few years before we see a usable version of this technology in everyday electronic devices.
Imagine a world with no wires needed to power your gadgets, it certainly would make life a lot simpler for gadget fans like myself.
via SlashGear
August 22nd, 2008 at 2:30 pm
75% efficiency is amazing for wireless power. But just like the last wireless power technology, the issue is where the other 25% power goes. You don’t want to be cooked just because you’re charging a cell phone.
(Note: I’m serious about the concern, but I recognize that the energy is most likely not being radiated in any form dangerous to a person. Your electric stove is 5% efficient, it radiates 95% of its energy as heat which we use to cook!)
August 22nd, 2008 at 2:36 pm
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August 22nd, 2008 at 6:42 pm
“Imagine a world with no wires needed to power your gadgets, it certainly would make life a lot simpler for gadget fans like myself.”
Tesla did this a great many years ago, its a shame no one listened to him then. I we had, imagine where we would be today
August 22nd, 2008 at 6:55 pm
“The technology demonstrated comprised of two metal arrays”
I think you mean T”he technology demonstrated comprised two metal arrays”
August 22nd, 2008 at 7:42 pm
yay wireless power cables
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o.0
wait a minuit, some thing dosn’t sound quite right about that…
August 22nd, 2008 at 7:56 pm
I’m going to have to disagree with you, ‘Shawn Pitman,’ if that IS your real name. The fact that electric stoves’ heating coils capitalize on the resistance makes them *efficient* not inefficient.
August 22nd, 2008 at 8:16 pm
are there descendants of Nikola Tesla in the background?
August 22nd, 2008 at 8:18 pm
shawn pitman
wouldn’t your stove be 95% efficient, the 5% is whats nto being used, the 95% is heat, but thats what the stove is supposed to do, its not waste.
August 22nd, 2008 at 8:45 pm
I think that this is one of the best “gadgets” today. Imagine a day when the whole city will have wireless power, payed by everyone, so that you would never run out of battery… Even at home, this will make an amazing improvement…
August 22nd, 2008 at 9:01 pm
Am I the only one bothered that this “new” power technology was invented about 100 years ago by Nikola Tesla and if it was fully utilized today it could be powering the entire world? Who cares about a stinking cell phone. How about your car?
August 22nd, 2008 at 9:09 pm
no mention of Tesla, the original inventor of this technology?
August 22nd, 2008 at 9:13 pm
This is amazing. I want to see this in my house, giant coils and all!!
August 22nd, 2008 at 9:15 pm
Nikola Tesla would be proud. He made this technology years ago, but it was scrapped because there was no way to meter how much energy the consumer used. It’s just like how you can’t stop people from stealing wifi. Imagine if your neighbor was leaching your internet and your energy.
August 22nd, 2008 at 9:19 pm
Bring out the Tesla Coils!
August 22nd, 2008 at 9:36 pm
“Your electric stove is 5% efficient, it radiates 95% of its energy as heat which we use to cook!”
Um… which is *why* it radiates heat?
August 22nd, 2008 at 9:36 pm
Big deal… Tesla demonstrated this first almost a hundred years ago.
August 22nd, 2008 at 9:36 pm
Wow, that would actually be very cool to extract energy that way. That would really change what we really need to use to power electronics.
August 22nd, 2008 at 9:38 pm
Tesla demonstrated a working version of wireless electricity well over 50 years ago, this concept is far from new. This only gives power over 2 feet, tesla worked to give wireless electricity over an entire town or city.
August 22nd, 2008 at 9:42 pm
They better not apply – or worse – be granted a patent for this “technology” – Nikola Tesla was working on this before most engineers at Intel were even born.
August 22nd, 2008 at 10:01 pm
umm well tesla did demonstrate this about a hundred years ago with about 10% efficiency and a 100 ft. range. I can see this working as a mat you put on a table and just set all your gadgets on it to charge because that would be very high efficiency. But as for cars the efficiency would be very low. I could see it happening if it was built in underneath parking spots to charge your electric car or give it a boost along the way but to power it in real time would require about 100 amps continuously assuming you used capacitors for acceleration. I know this because I built and drive an electric car every day so I’m somewhat of an expert. Just don’t expect to see this added on to your nearest cell tower to power your cell phone any time soon.
August 22nd, 2008 at 10:11 pm
LIEK OMFG TESLA LIEK IVNETNED TAHT!
He obviously sucked at it if it’s not used widespread.
August 22nd, 2008 at 10:12 pm
Man.. Nikola Tesla invented this shit in the 1920’s and got shoot down by Edison for it cuz there was no $$ in it. Free energy for everyone.
Blaa blaa..
August 22nd, 2008 at 10:14 pm
Intel is Tesla’s bitch. Screw the article for not giving credit where an when it is due. Did Edison write this tripe.
August 22nd, 2008 at 10:35 pm
I’m not a Tesla expert, so somebody please correct me if I’m wrong.
The big difference between this experiment and Tesla’s work is that this is transmitting power via an electromagnetic field. From what I’ve learned about Tesla, he wanted to transmit power via electrostatic discharge.
Once again, I’m no expert so disregard this or flame me if I’m incorrect.
August 22nd, 2008 at 10:56 pm
“If it was fully utilized today it could be powering the entire world? Who cares about a stinking cell phone. How about your car?”
You assume no negative consequences from effectively short circuiting the ionosphere?
Imagine the end result of geothermal, cooling the core. Nothing happens without reaction, I’d say Tesla’s vision would have cause a whole different crop of global problems, and until I know what those would have been, I’m content to leave well enough alone.
After all, DDT, thalidomide, and aspartame looked safe in theory.
August 23rd, 2008 at 12:02 am
I think the short range version of power is going to be more commercially palatable than Tesla’s city-wide (or even planet-wide) distribution.
Anyway I remember reading about this in the mid 90’s: special “mats” that you would drop your cell or PDA onto and they would then draw power. Another technique was wall-mounted lasers scanning and then beaming high intensity power into photoelectrics.
August 23rd, 2008 at 12:19 am
Can’t beleive they dont mention Tesla. He invented this years ago, and had it working and powering and entire city, for free. wirelessly. Then, he began building his tesla tower(not the true name) which was a beggining step to providing free wireless electricity for the entire world, unfortunately his funding was cut and everyone called him insane, some do even to this day, and most dont know his name. A damn shame I say, atleast give Telsa the credit he is due instead of making intel sound like it make a “new” discovery.
August 23rd, 2008 at 12:25 am
what this reminds me of is “contact less” electrical induction. what seems to be going on here is that AC current is running through the coils. This is actually more of a common practice that most people realize. It uses one electrically charged coil to inductively make another coil electrically charged.
Some of the best examples of this are RFID chips in some ID cards and wireless door keys. my electric toothbrush uses this technology to charge it’s batteries without actually having metal contacts on it’s charger, making it much safer to work around water.
This is a much larger concept. Probably able to induct more current than anything ever attempted before.
This is however not tesla’s wireless power transmitter. telsa’s method was much closer to what we use for radio transmitters. Radio transmitters can actually transmit as much as 100Kw of signal…the main difference is that there is sound encapsulated or modulated into that power. Unfortunately radio antenna designs aren’t designed to deliver large amounts of electricity to large amounts of users. although it is powerful enough to power foxhole radios.
August 23rd, 2008 at 12:47 am
Wow, 75% at two feet? How useful is that, seriously? I would love to see the efficiency vs. distance curve. eff = 1-(d/4)^2 or so, I’m guessing. I honestly bet I could build a copy of my current SRSG Tesla coil, and get modest results; and imagine the budget difference.
August 23rd, 2008 at 12:55 am
Tesla invented wireless power but it wasn’t safe. It was in a form of radiation. Even this type is probably unsafe to be between. MIT did something safer but still not practical, which was transfering it by means of magnetism, which wouldn’t hurt people but still dagerous for electronics to some degree. Truthfully I don’t think power can ever be done wirelessly safely. There’s no way to funnel it by air that would guarantee it would not go through a person. I think there might be hope in transmitting it by magnetism, or maybe by sound outside of hearing frequency, but not in unlimited amounts. At some point it becomes dangerous for life or electronics.
August 23rd, 2008 at 1:18 am
THIS IS 1900 TECHNOLOGY. WHAT’s NEXT? A MECHANICAL ADDING MACHINE?
August 23rd, 2008 at 1:39 am
-Colin-
Patents expire 70 years after the inventors death. Well at least that is what happens if a current patent is issued. Same with copyrights.
August 23rd, 2008 at 9:52 am
[...] Its the end of another week here at geeky gadgets, there certainly have been some very interesting and cool gadgets this week so here is a round up of the most popular ones. Intel Demonstrates New Wireless Power Technology [...]
August 23rd, 2008 at 10:16 pm
I’m sure it’s completely safe and there’s nothing to worry about! http://notnews.today.com/2008/08/23/intel-demonstrates-wireless-power-for-the-home/
August 23rd, 2008 at 11:54 pm
Michael, you have no idea what you’re talking about. Do you know what “radiation” is? Light is a form of radiation. So are radio waves. There is an untold amount of background radiation from various EM sources, both natural and not, passing through your body right now. And it’s completely safe.
The kind of radiation that’s “bad,” i.e. nuclear radiation, is called ionizing radiation. RF and EM are non-ionizing. The only way standing between that thing is dangerous is the field is powerful enough to sufficiently heat up your body that you cook. That’s how microwaves work. It would actually be completely safe to stand inside a giant microwave, as long as the power wasn’t high enough to significantly raise your body temperature.
“I think there might be hope in transmitting it by magnetism” magnetic fields are a form of radiation. Uh durr.
Also, sound is not a part of the EM spectrum, it’s simply pressure waves in the air. You can’t transmit anything but a tiny amount of power through sound.
August 24th, 2008 at 1:01 am
yeah– you know we were going to have wireless electricity from the Edison Electric company back when they were beginning to sell their energy, but then they would have had to have a power station every couple of blocks. And they were worried about health issues (yes even back then)… but then Tesla came in and saved the day.
August 27th, 2008 at 10:55 pm
Just like Tesla. this technology is about a century old.
August 28th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
Tesla created AC power and the radio signal (Edison made DC and was quoted before his death saying Tesla was the greatest EE who ever lived). Intel simply demonstrated inductivity here, and is much more common than most people realize.
Every transformer and electrical choke uses this technology. It’s very simple; but just like microchips the goal is to make them smaller and more powerful.
‘Power’ is not transmitted through the air like a Tesla Coil, so it can not shock you. Only objects that are capable of being ionized will be affected by this, such as ferrite.
August 29th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
[...] Intel Demonstrates New Wireless Power Technology [...]
August 29th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
I think this is great technology, but its hard to see it fitting into our every day lives in the next couple of years. That is even to say if they have perfected this kind of power transfer process by then.
Sure will be cool when we can wirelessly charge our gadgets though!
September 2nd, 2008 at 8:40 am
This is interesting, I always love hearing about Tesla!
My buddy actually works for a company called PowerBeam, and they actually transfer electricity via optical energy.
Just like Tesla, they too can transfer energy over long-range distances… but its not quite the ‘Tesla Effect.’
He mainly used radiowaves whereas PowerBeam use laser beams,a different frequency of energy.
I’m not sure how different Tesla’s methods are withPowerBeam’s cuz I haven’t read books on Tesla, just internet info, but if you want more details on the PowerBeam you can visit their website at http://www.powerbeaminc.com
September 2nd, 2008 at 8:23 pm
[...] Pushed into third place was the entry from Geeky Gadgets, Intel’s new wireless power. Intel has demonstrated its new wireless power technology at this years IDF. The technology [...]
September 9th, 2008 at 12:53 am
Press Release: “…power is then transmitted from one metal array to the other . . . transferring 60 watts of power over a distance of two feet.”
Blog Author: “…I am sure it wont be more than a few years before we see a usable version of this technology in everyday electronic devices.”
WTF?
The “metal arrays” are called antennas and are currently used to transfer kilowatts of power.
We call it radio.
The press release was about transmitting radio power EFFICIENTLY, not about transmitting electricity.
Power (watts) is not electricity.
When electricity is “transmitted” through the air it is called a spark.
… read a book.