WiTricty

Flying Abruptly

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8165928.stm

Very interesting idea, would love to see this taking off in the next couple of years. What do people think? I'd say there might be some problems getting the infrastructure needed for this sort of thing in place...

drunkmonkey

the french space agency are working on this for nealry 20 years, they had a community powered via wireless, very intresting, just not sure it won't cook us all..

Flying Abruptly

I remember reading somewhere else aswell about generating power in outer space using huge solar panels and sending the power back to earth, this type of technology starts to make that sort idea a little more than just an idea

drunkmonkey

Looks like it's here if the professor is correct, he's talking a 1yr + timescale, Can't be good for our bodys though?

Flying Abruptly

drunkmonkey wrote: »

Looks like it's here if the professor is correct, he's talking a 1yr + timescale, Can't be good for our bodys though?

The public opinon thing on whether it'll be safe or not will be one of the biggest obstacles to overcome. Alot like the mobile phone masts/signals debate. The article doesnt mention specifically about health. I thought the longer the wave the more safe it is? (could be wrong though). If MIT are working on it you known it must be good

bluto63

Isn't there a huge loss of energy when it's sent via wireless?

I'd love to know more about the technical side of the mechanism by which it transfers energy.

It could possibly revolutionise the way in which we charge our portable devices, but unless the mechanism is theoretically capable of transfering a large amount of energy over a large distance I can't see it revolutionising our lives too much.

Flying Abruptly

bluto63 wrote: »

Isn't there a huge loss of energy when it's sent via wireless?

I went reading into this a bit further and an MIT paper from 2007 says they conducted an expierment that was about 40% efficient, not sure how that compares to what the guy in the video was talking about but like anything else it should improve with further research.

Flying Abruptly

-JammyDodger- wrote: »

I'd love to know more about the technical side of the mechanism by which it transfers energy.

It could possibly revolutionise the way in which we charge our portable devices, but unless the mechanism is theoretically capable of transfering a large amount of energy over a large distance I can't see it revolutionising our lives too much.

I dont like using wikipedia as a source but it gives a decent explaination of what the bbc artilcel covers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_energy_transfer#Resonant_induction

So far it looks like they only operate over a few metres but if you had two or three of these spread throughout your house it could work, again i'd say a bit more resesarch and it'll improve

AlmightyCushion

-JammyDodger- wrote: »

I'd love to know more about the technical side of the mechanism by which it transfers energy.

It could possibly revolutionise the way in which we charge our portable devices, but unless the mechanism is theoretically capable of transfering a large amount of energy over a large distance I can't see it revolutionising our lives too much.

Well even if it means we have less cables lying about the place it'll be a good thing. I'd love to have a 5.1 surround sound with no wires needed for the speakers.

Here's a TED talk on this principle, pretty interesting.

Futurism

Anyone got any further reading material on this? Google isn't finding anything of value really.

Futurism

Futurism wrote: »

Anyone got any further reading material on this? Google isn't finding anything of value really.

Apart from this Wiki article, which I've used to get to know the topic, I can't find much else. If I do, I'll post it here.