Sony dives into wireless power game, makes it way more interesting
By Darren Murph 
posted October 2nd 2009 2:17AM
posted October 2nd 2009 2:17AM
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posted October 2nd 2009 2:17AM
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does anyone else suddenly think about wild forms of cancer occurring when reading about wireless power or is it just me?
With everything going wireless nowadays it so concern me about radiation levels.
Very funny, especially when you think of the amount of background radiation that is present around us (Electromagnetic/magnetic). I really wonder if the radiation fear is anything more than paranoia based on "health information" that is widely available on the internet.
Kudos to Sony on their efforts :)
You can't get cancer from anything short of UV rays. All other harmful radiation including X-rays and Gamma rays have frequencies higher than UV.
No, but worrying about being harmed by electromagnetic frequencies can make it so. The subconscious mind is powerful enough to manifest whatever it believes to exist.
@Kurian: If you believe that radiation with a frequency smaller than UV cannot be damaging then perhaps you should try hanging out in a microwave oven.
As a physics professor, I believe there is merit to the concern over radio transmission safety. Regarding wireless power - that most certainly ups the ante in a big way. I do NOT believe it will be safe. But... I will wait to review the details.
so, as a physics professor, you should know that anything below UV won't cause DNA molecules to ionize, and eventually split, which could lead to cancer. A microwave will hurt because of vibrational effects on molecules. Yes, it might burn, but cancer? i dont think so. We are bombarded by cosmic radiation 24/7, and noone is afraid of that.
Am i wrong? please correct me if so.
throw your cellphone if you r so much worried about the radiations...........or if this thing is not from your favorite company.........for example ms/apple
I'm not sure I'd want to step between that active link. Maybe I've been watching too many Japanese science fiction movies about morphing creatures that were exposed exposed to nearby power supplies.
@blahblah
The waves themselves are not harmful. They just have the property of inducing vibrations/heat. Its tantamount to standing in front of a blast furnace.
Engineers are awesome.
so desune
true dat
One step closer to that wireless, bezelless, paperthin hdtv I've been dreaming about.
Soon, Ps4 completely wireless with a wireless hdtv. Now all i have to do is outlive 2012.
Magnetic resonance is how you get an MRI. This is induction.
What's so great about sending power over a 50cm gap? Especially tell me what's so great that I want to put up with 40W of power lost (turned into an electromagnetic field and thus heat) per 100W sent?
Personally a power cable works well enough for me...costs near nothing. ;)
@LS2LS7:
"What's so great about sending power over a 50cm gap?"
Um, yea, I think back in 1980 someone said to AT&T: "what's so great about sending telephone signals over the air? who would ever want to walk around and talk on a phone?"
Yup. Now, ask AT&T how much they had to spend in 1993 to get back into that wireless telephone game...
A cell phone works from farther away than 50cm. Now look up induction.
its a start!
"A cell phone works from farther away than 50cm. Now look up induction." - :facepalm: and what, you think radio waves just magically started out with a HUGE range? Obviously it takes time to perfect the technology. besides, if we had this mentality with everything we'd still be in the dark ages! "Oh, it doesn't work that well on our first few tries, guess we'll give up and go back to the old method!"
::Facepalm:: to Aaron the power lost during induction occurs due to the natural phenomenon that happens during transmission. the 40watts per 100w cant change...thats physics...the only way to increase there range would be to increase the power to make up for power lost of distance...ya...thats how they fixed radio waves too...increased the output power and more senstive recerives that used more power to amplify the single....
if you want technology to change the laws of physics you need to get out of your la-la land. We need to find out ways to produce more power with less resources, then we can let power "go to waste" and use wireless power. Untill then...50cms of wireless power is useless, ill stick with power cords.
All i can think about is the harmful radiation.. but then again.. do i really care bout that?
Hello cancer!
As long as I get some mutant super healing powers of wolverine from using this. My whole house is going wireless power...
Be careful with your wishes, or soon the villains will be able to replenish their power wirelessly!
I wonder what the chances of getting electrocuted are while wearing a metal watch (or anything else metal) when you get to close it.
If that chance is anything higher then 0% this thing scares me. Even if I would have to put my body directly in between the two objects.
Yikes.
It does sound cool though.
No no no. Bezel is mandatory so that your games and movies do not begin to merge with reality :)
WTF is with the comment system? This was intended to be a reply to CyberGray. Hello up there %)
This needs to reach AT LEAST 6 feet or else it does no better than a simple cord, aesthetics aside. It would be nice to make it 12 feet, but....baby steps.
That's all well and good, but what happens if it stops working properly after a firmware update?
You go and spend another $6k on a new TV?
Hey great, another way to pointlessly increase our energy footprint! I was having trouble keeping up with the Joneses. By making all my appliances wireless, i can increase my power consumption with no extra effort!
Seriously, anyone putting a wireless big-screen TV in their house should be electrocuted. Wireless power transmission is great for convenience's sake with portables, but we don't need to be systematically decreasing our efficiency by using it for installed appliances...
It will be awesome to see people with this tech in their house in the near future complaining about the supposed detrimental effects of cell phone radiation, though.
1. Its magnetic induction, it is not an electromagnetic wave. (i.e. if the earth's magnetism hasn't given you cancer this won't either)
2. Imagine if you can put all your portable devices on top of a table and get them all charging, or roll your car into your garage and charge it without plugging any wires.
3. Don't be anal, a few feet is a good start.
4. At least I can run the comment system.
It isn't a few feet, it's under two feet. And you're making a really stupid assumption that it will end up going much farther than a few feet. It just doesn't work that way. Look up induction.
I don't care about contactless charging. It's not so difficult to plug a cord into my phone or my car that I can't be bothered to do it.
If you think that just because the earth's magnetic field doesn't cause harm that you can see that no magnetic fields can, then I encourage you to go check out an MRI machine sometime. Take a look at the safety measures around those and tell me that no magnetic field can be a problem.
Anything short of 99% efficiency is a step in the wrong direction. I hope that nothing wasteful takes off. Our priority should be finding ways to use LESS power, not new ways of wasting it.
Don't know what the efficiency of your normal TV power cable is, but depending on length it could be less than 99%...
Aside from that, 50cm is just a start. The first cars went 15mph I believe, but with improvements we have (specially designed) cars that can hit 300mph. Wireless internet used to be pretty bad with weak signals that were easily interruptable, but has since changed to be quite reliable. Yes, 60% efficiency is garbage and I don't think a lot of consumers would even accept that (if they were informed), but again that's where research comes in. As Giordano points out, there are lots of applications for wireless power, you just have to be creative.
@ the physics professor, I believe the previous comment was in regards to these waves causing cancer. Yes a microwave can kill you, but only because it causes the water in your body to boil. I don't think I've seen any proof that microwave or any other sub-UV waves causing cancer.
@allenvanhellen
I hope you know that current internal combustion piston engine sitting in your car in your driving is less than 30% efficient. It only produces meaningful work 25% of the time it is running and the rest is waste heat and noise. The only engine that is currently the most efficient is the Tesla Turbine. it is 98% efficient.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_turbine
is it just me or does other people worry about getting shocked to death from walking from your living room to the kitchen?...electricity through the air?...we'll see how this goes
quick yer yacking and watch this for a actual demonstration of a functioning LCD without an AC cord:
http://www.ted.com/talks/eric_giler_demos_wireless_electricity.html
AND it addresses safety concerns.
Thank you, I was gonna post that too. It's pretty fricken' cool, if you ask me, especially with the HTC Dream where it looked exactly the same from a normal HTC Dream with just a battery.
This is impressive and may have certain auseful applications but I worry that only two of the comments mention the enormous WASTE of electricity involved.
The planet will survive - but us? Not with this level of awareness...
The TV doesn't need a cord but its charger station does. So we basically get the same thing plus added open-space microwave as a bonus... fry your insides for free?
Oh, wait. "Pay to get your insides fried". Its a Sony!
I saw this a few weeks back and thought it was really neat.
http://www.wimp.com/electricitydemo
1. eyad kudos for the link to a TED presentation, TED rocks, and 2. how has noone made some sort of tesla reference, am i really the geekiest person here!?!? god i hope not....
So, I'm unable to read Japanese, but I imagine it says something like, "Okay, so, you've got your blue stuff... here, and then this pink stuff, and here in the middle, in the red, is SUPER HAPPY KARATE MONKEY SQUIGGLE LINE POWER AWESOME!! WIN!!"
Microwaves generate heat through friction at the atomic level, at least that's my understanding of the basic principle. As far as wireless power goes, I think that each house would need some sort of magnetic router, I am skeptical though, as electricity can be induced onto anything that conducts, let's just say I wouldn't want to be holding a piece of copper!!!
Well, I seem to recall that received inductive power decreases as the square of the distance, so if the thing receives 75% (60 W) of the original 80-W input at 50 cm, you'll get only 4 W at 100 cm and 1 W at 200 cm--about 6.5 ft. This assumes an isotropic signal, which may not be the case, but it's still a valid rule-of-thumb calculation. The bottom line is that either Sony engineers are a bunch of morons or someone in their PR department is playing with the media to get free publicity.
And for you all who are worried about harmful effects, I regret having to tell you this, but any electricity moving through wires generates radiation, so it's all over you all the time. That's why your blender causes static on the TV. My recommendation is that you wrap yourself in aluminum foil and keep your head in a metallic mesh bag. Better safe than sorry.
Oops. Make that 15 W at 100 cm and 3.75 at 200.