Intel has made progress in a technology that could lead to the wireless recharging of gadgets and the end of power-cord spaghetti behind electronic devices.
It says it has increased the efficiency of a technique for wirelessly powering consumer gadgets and computers, a development that could allow a person to simply place a device on a desktop or countertop to power it. It could bring the consumer electronics industry a step closer to a world without wires.
On Thursday, the chip maker planned to demonstrate the use of a magnetic field to broadcast up to 60 watts of power up to a meter. It says it can do that losing only 25 percent of the power in transmission.
PHOTO: AP
“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.”
The presentation is part of the company’s Intel Developer Forum, a series of events that the company uses to showcase new technologies in personal computing and related consumer technologies.
The research project, which is being led by Joshua Smith, an Intel researcher at a company laboratory in Seattle, builds on the work of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) physicist Marin Soljacic, who pioneered the idea of the wireless transmission of power using resonant magnetic fields. Induction is already used to recharge electric toothbrushes, but that approach is limited by the need for the toothbrush to be placed in the base station.
Intel is in the midst of an internal debate over whether the technology may also permit the shift to supercapacitors, which can be recharged far more quickly than today’s batteries.
“In the future, your kitchen counters might do it,” Rattner said. “You’d just drop your espresso maker down on them and you would never have to plug it in.”
The Intel team describes its system as a “wireless resonant energy link,” and is experimenting with antennas less than 60cm in diameter to remotely light a 60-watt light bulb.
In 2006, the MIT researchers demonstrated that by sending electromagnetic waves around a waveguide it was possible to produce “evanescent” waves that could permit electricity to wirelessly tunnel to another waveguide “tuned” to the transmitting loop.
Several start-up firms, including WildCharge, based in Boulder, Colorado, and WiPower, based in Altamonte Springs, Florida, have already announced related wireless charging technologies. But these demonstrations have required that the consumer gadgets touch the charging station.
The Intel researchers said they were thinking about designing a system that would make it possible to recharge a laptop computer without wires.
“From Intel’s position that seems like the thing to shoot for right now,” Smith said.
The researchers said that Intel could produce a prototype design and that it might contribute to products by developing chip sets for manufacturers.
On Thursday Smith planned to demonstrate an application using an electric field sensor — a natural capability of some fish — to give added dexterity to robotic arms and hands. He has designed a sensor system that makes it possible for a robot hand to gauge the size of an apple and then grasp it.
NO-LIMITS PARTNERSHIP: ‘The bottom line’ is that if the US were to have a conflict with China or Russia it would likely open up a second front with the other, a US senator said Beijing and Moscow could cooperate in a conflict over Taiwan, the top US intelligence chief told the US Senate this week. “We see China and Russia, for the first time, exercising together in relation to Taiwan and recognizing that this is a place where China definitely wants Russia to be working with them, and we see no reason why they wouldn’t,” US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told a US Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing on Thursday. US Senator Mike Rounds asked Haines about such a potential scenario. He also asked US Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse
INSPIRING: Taiwan has been a model in the Asia-Pacific region with its democratic transition, free and fair elections and open society, the vice president-elect said Taiwan can play a leadership role in the Asia-Pacific region, vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) told a forum in Taipei yesterday, highlighting the nation’s resilience in the face of geopolitical challenges. “Not only can Taiwan help, but Taiwan can lead ... not only can Taiwan play a leadership role, but Taiwan’s leadership is important to the world,” Hsiao told the annual forum hosted by the Center for Asia-Pacific Resilience and Innovation think tank. Hsiao thanked Taiwan’s international friends for their long-term support, citing the example of US President Joe Biden last month signing into law a bill to provide aid to Taiwan,
China’s intrusive and territorial claims in the Indo-Pacific region are “illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive,” new US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo said on Friday, adding that he would continue working with allies and partners to keep the area free and open. Paparo made the remarks at a change-of-command ceremony at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii, where he took over the command from Admiral John Aquilino. “Our world faces a complex problem set in the troubling actions of the People’s Republic of China [PRC] and its rapid buildup of forces. We must be ready to answer the PRC’s increasingly intrusive and
STATE OF THE NATION: The legislature should invite the president to deliver an address every year, the TPP said, adding that Lai should also have to answer legislators’ questions The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday proposed inviting president-elect William Lai (賴清德) to make a historic first state of the nation address at the legislature following his inauguration on May 20. Lai is expected to face many domestic and international challenges, and should clarify his intended policies with the public’s representatives, KMT caucus secretary-general Hung Meng-kai (洪孟楷) said when making the proposal at a meeting of the legislature’s Procedure Committee. The committee voted to add the item to the agenda for Friday, along with another similar proposal put forward by the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The invitation is in line with Article 15-2