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[UtadaBarkley]

As I was researching PDA's to buy, a strange idea popped into my head. Is it theoretically feasible to creeate some sort of wireless power supply? Like, design a unit that could be powered, wirelessly? I.E. your home would feature a wireless toaster, wireless iron, wireless hairdryer, wirelessly powered vaccums. Wirelessly powered teleivions, DVD players, and other household utilities and electronics. Not until then will we be a truly wireless society. It's a pretty crazy thing to sit and think about. What would it take to create something like this?

 

[levious]

 

[UtadaBarkley]

Never seen it/read it, but cool! :lol

 

[Hitokage]

There are certainly ways of transmitting energy from one point to another without wires, but if you're staying strictly electrical, then a tesla coil will do the trick. The problem is that you can't really control what receives power.

 

[scorcho]

As I was researching PDA's to buy, a strange idea popped into my head. Is it theoretically feasible to creeate some sort of wireless power supply? Like, design a unit that could be powered, wirelessly? I.E. your home would feature a wireless toaster, wireless iron, wireless hairdryer, wirelessly powered vaccums. Wirelessly powered teleivions, DVD players, and other household utilities and electronics. Not until then will we be a truly wireless society. It's a pretty crazy thing to sit and think about. What would it take to create something like this?

solar-power?

 

[DarienA]

Health risks factors are the first thing that pop to my mind.... take radio antennas and microwave dishes... IIRC you aren't suppose to stand near one of those puppies when it's at full tilt... a large MW dish would cook you.

 

[dskillzhtown]

I was talking to a engineer at HP when I worked there about this. He said that it is possible, but it is definitely some years, maybe decades off. Instead of wireless power, he was thinking of in the direction of a battery that makes it's own power. I know they are experimenting with keyboards on laptops that actually generate energy with each keystroke.

 

[UtadaBarkley]

I was talking to a engineer at HP when I worked there about this. He said that it is possible, but it is definitely some years, maybe decades off. Instead of wireless power, he was thinking of in the direction of a battery that makes it's own power. I know they are experimenting with keyboards on laptops that actually generate energy with each keystroke.

That would be great. Wouldn't help much when watching dvd's though :-/ Oh well, can't have everything.

 

[SKluck]

Wireless power, or 'beaming' energy, like what you are thinking is retarded and unfeasible.

It would take considerable less work and research just to make better/smaller/more powerful batteries.

 

[tedtropy]

I was talking to a engineer at HP when I worked there about this. He said that it is possible, but it is definitely some years, maybe decades off. Instead of wireless power, he was thinking of in the direction of a battery that makes it's own power. I know they are experimenting with keyboards on laptops that actually generate energy with each keystroke.

Hah, that is a shockingly (pun totally unintended) good idea, although I wonder how much of a charge those actions would actually provide. Maybe we could re-add the ball to the mouse and use it to generate battery power via kinetic motion...maybe not.

 

[cvxfreak]

One for game consoles would rule.

 

[UtadaBarkley]

Wireless power, or 'beaming' energy, like what you are thinking is retarded and unfeasible.

It would take considerable less work and research just to make better/smaller/more powerful batteries.

Hah, the same thing was said about Airplanes, Television with color, and practically everything else you use on a regular basis today. So i don't think it's as "retarded" as ya say.

 

[Hitokage]

Hah, the same thing was said about Airplanes, Television with color, and practically everything else you use on a regular basis today. So i don't think it's as "retarded" as ya say.

Broken logic.

 

[dskillzhtown]

Well the way it was explained to me was that when using the laptop, the keystrokes would use enough energy so that the battery would not be drained at all. So when working, you wouldn't have to worry about the battery going dead.

 

[UtadaBarkley]

Broken logic.

How so? Not trying to start an arguements here, but I don't understand how that is broken logic, enlighten me.

 

[Dan]

I know they are experimenting with keyboards on laptops that actually generate energy with each keystroke.

Very cool idea although I'm not sure how cost effective that would be. If it were inexpensive to implement then it'd be nice as an additional power source.

 

[ChrisReid]

How so? Not trying to start an arguements here, but I don't understand how that is broken logic, enlighten me.

You really haven't stumbled across an amazingly bright idea. Color televisions were a refinement of an existing technology. They took a while, but it wasa natural evolution of what we had. "Wireless power" as a concept is a hundred years old, and it's like the perpetual motion machines and light speed travel, it's a huge huge problem that's much much better handled by kinetic generators and batteries.

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

How so? Not trying to start an arguements here, but I don't understand how that is broken logic, enlighten me.

If we accept the fact that SOME things claimed to have been retarded really weren't, it doesn't logically follow that any given thing called retarded really isn't.

 

[The Shadow]

As I was researching PDA's to buy, a strange idea popped into my head. Is it theoretically feasible to creeate some sort of wireless power supply? Like, design a unit that could be powered, wirelessly? I.E. your home would feature a wireless toaster, wireless iron, wireless hairdryer, wirelessly powered vaccums. Wirelessly powered teleivions, DVD players, and other household utilities and electronics. Not until then will we be a truly wireless society. It's a pretty crazy thing to sit and think about. What would it take to create something like this?

It's possible now but not very practical and actually dangerous. I've seen it demonstrated where they had a power source at one end of a room and a light at the other end and power was "beamed" to the light by converting it to microwaves. The problem with this is that there had to be a clear line of sight between the two or else power couldn't be transmitted and whatever interrupted the beam could be damaged by the microwave beam.

In the end, research in lighter and more powerful rechargeable batteries is far more practical.

 

[Matlock]

Batman had atomic batteries in 1966.

Why don't we have them now?

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

Batman had atomic batteries in 1966.

Why don't we have them now?

We'd all have to dress like 1966 Batman for them to work.

 

[impirius]

This isn't exactly what you're talking about, but it's a step in that direction.

Power Pad Offers Easy Recharge

Amid the wireless buzz, a company claims to have solved the "last wire" dilemma by eliminating the need to plug in devices to charge them. Startup MobileWise is working with Acer and others to ship (early next year) a pad with a conductive surface capable of powering compatible computing devices that simply rest on top of it--as efficiently as if they were plugged into an electrical outlet.

 

[Tekky]

Transmission of power using an electromagnetic field is usually far too inefficient to provide enough power for anything to do any real work. It can be made efficient only when the distance is very short (like your Braun or Sonicare toothbrushes that sit in their holders to recharge wirelessly), or where the energy can be "beamed" in a directional fashion, such as using microwaves. However, transmitting a lot of power that way is dangerous.

In short, not likely to happen for general purpose uses.

 

[Link648099]

The whole idea about using keystrokes to generate power has been around for awhile, I do believe. I wonder why it hasnt been used yet?

But here's a better idea: We can use solar power to make electricity, correct? We can also use microwave beams to transmit that energy. We have the technology, so heres what we should do. Create a few dozen or so solar energy collecting arrays, launch them into space so they can be exposed to a constant stream of light from the sun, have them convert that energy to microwaves, and beam it down here on earth. Might be rather inefficiant in the conversion process, but so what? Get a few hundred of those things up there and some receiving plants here on earth, and all our energy needs would be taken care of.

I think I've heard about this idea, that scientists are actually considering it, and might attempt trying it in a few years.

 

[Dilbert]

You might research Tesla's Wardenclyffe experiment.

 

[Darias]

Link, I also agree that it holds signifigant merit, but consider what happens if the targeting of the microwave transmission beam were, for example, to miss the arizona receiving station and hit Los Angeles instead...



Mmm... I smell steak.

SimCity 2000 anyone?

 

[Zaptruder]

Picture this...

it's the year 2030... instead of power cords going into electrical sockets...

your computer will have two large pedals on either side of the case... and you'll be pedalling it to generate its power!