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Wireless power standard almost here, named Qi (of all things)

by Joseph L. Flatley posted Aug 18th 2009 at 11:23AM

We're not sure whether to chalk this up to the fact that every good brand name is already taken, or to some folks' delight in torturing us with obscure pronunciation -- but whatever the case may be, it looks like the Wireless Power Consortium have finally come up with a spec for Wireless Power, and for it they're using a name (and logo) probably dreamt up after repeat viewings of Big Trouble in Little China: Qi. Pronounced Ch'i (you know, as in "prana" or "life force"), the first universal wireless standard has achieved 0.95 for interoperability testing a mere seven months after setting their eyes on the goal, paving the way for an "accelerated" acceptance of 1.0, according to a company spokesperson. The Qi standard applies to devices 5 watts and below, and members of the consortium include Duracell, National Semiconductor, Olympus, Philips, Samsung, Sanyo, ST-Ericsson, and Shenzhen Sangfei Consumer Communications. At any rate, it's nice to hear about something happening ahead of schedule for once.

[Via SlashGear]

Fulton Innovation has a wireless power coming out party at CES

by Nilay Patel posted Jan 8th 2009 at 10:56PM

It was just a short year ago that we went to Fulton Innovation's tiny booth at CES and failed to get a working wireless power demo, but a lot's happened since then -- the company is at CES 2009 in force, with a much larger, swanker booth, partners like Energizer and Motorola demoing working products, and tons of working real-world examples of the tech in action. We were particularly taken with the modded Dish DVR that automatically turned itself on and off when the remote was placed on top of it to charge up -- oh, and the remote featured super-capacitors instead of batteries that charge fully in 10 seconds. There were also a ton of cell phones (including a modded iPhone, of course), new cooking demos featuring a blender, and a super cool Leggett & Pratt power tool charging workbench. Extremely impressive, all in all -- we're starting to think that 2009 could be the year that wireless power could really take off. Gallery below, video after the break!

P.S.- We asked if Fulton had anything to do with the Palm Pre's sexy Touchstone wireless charger, but the guys in the booth didn't know. We'll let you know if we find anything out.

Gallery: Fulton Innovation Wireless Power

Continue reading Fulton Innovation has a wireless power coming out party at CES

Wireless Power Consortium to create universal wireless charging standard, insist that it's like magic

by Nilay Patel posted Dec 19th 2008 at 1:27PM

Although we've seen some interesting demos, wireless power systems have mostly been a novelty -- apart from a couple gaming accessories, the most notable thing a wireless company has done so far is declare bankruptcy. That's hopefully about to change, however: a new group called the Wireless Power Consortium plans to introduce a series of charging standards aimed at making sure all this magical tech plays nice with each other. The eight-company group includes Logitech, Philips, Sanyo (and now Panasonic, we'd suppose), TI, National Semiconductor, ConvenientPower, and Fulton Innovation -- which demoed that wireless hamburger for us, you'll recall. The group plans to first release a five-watt standard targeted at mobile phones, after which it'll take aim at laptops and other more power-hungry devices. Based on the flood of wireless-related PR we've been getting as CES gets closer, we're expecting some big things to happen in this space -- it sounds like Energizer is also going to get involved, which could be interesting. We'll see how it plays out -- hopefully this is the year we finally cut that power cord.

Read - PC World article
Read - WIreless Power Consortium website

Video: eCoupled fires up its wireless Foreman grill and cooks us a burger

by Nilay Patel posted Feb 7th 2008 at 7:37PM

You might remember how excited we were to send Veronica Belmont over to eCoupled's booth at CES for a demo of the company's wireless Foreman grill, only to be bitterly disappointed when the reps claimed to have "power problems" and didn't really demo anything at all. Well, as it turns out, there was an eCoupled engineer on our flight home from Vegas, and after showing us his wirelessly-charging laptop, he promised us a video of the Foreman in action. And... it's a video of a dude cooking a burger. Sure, the grill is wireless -- but come on, where's the showmanship? Let's at least put a hula hoop around it, people. That said, we can see a lot of potential for the tech if it gets ubiquitous -- let's just hope the sales team has a little more of the ol' vaudeville spirit in 'em, eh? Check the video after the break.

Continue reading Video: eCoupled fires up its wireless Foreman grill and cooks us a burger

Video: eCoupled not demoing its wireless power system

by Nilay Patel posted Jan 9th 2008 at 10:01PM

We were totally stoked to see eCoupled's "Intelligent Wireless Power" system in action -- the rep even said they'd try and cook us a burger on their wireless Foreman grill -- but when Veronica got there, "power fluctuations" kept them from demoing anything more than a Zune that lit up when placed directly on a charging pad. VB was way too nice to call them out on video, but come on -- you don't run around promising wireless burgers and then barely compete with a WildCharger. Check out Veronica's barely-concealed boredom after the break.

Continue reading Video: eCoupled not demoing its wireless power system

Herman Miller planning "desk of the future"

by Donald Melanson posted Jan 19th 2007 at 3:36PM

High-end furniture maker Herman Miller looks to be doing its best to cut down on the ever-increasing nuisance of gadget clutter, with Reuters reporting that the company has licensed Fulton Innovation's eCoupled technology to let you recharge various electronic devices simply plopping them down on your (presumably pricey) desk. The technology (shown here in decidedly Herman Miller-form) works by transferring power through a magnetic field that'll charge anything that comes in contact with it; we assume it also involves some sort of adapter for your respective devices. Of course, cordless charging isn't an entirely new concept, with HP recently showing off some of its own ideas for juiced-up furniture, and Splashpower talking up its charge-on-contact system for a few years now. We guess we'll just have to wait and see if this new power-happy desk becomes the same status symbol for the Web 2.0 crowd that Herman Miller's Aeron chair was back in Web 1.0 days -- assuming we haven't moved on to Web 3.0 by the time the desk actually comes out, that is.

[Via textually.org]

eCoupled Intelligent Wireless Power debuting at CES next month

by Peter Rojas posted Dec 27th 2006 at 5:16PM

Looks like Fulton Innovation is getting ready to introduce a new system called "eCoupled" at CES next month that uses inductive coupling to wirelessly charge gadgets. We've been hearing about wireless charging solutions for gadgets for, well, years now (remember Splashpower?), so we wouldn't be surprised to see 2007 come and go with us charging all of our damn gadgets the old fashioned way, but Fulton has lined up some serious partners, including Visteon, Motorola, Mobility Electronics, and Herman Miller (they make office furniture). Their press release today is a little light on specifics, like when we'll actually be able to buy eCoupled-enabled gadgets, but presumably they're saving all that for CES.