Apple's Interested in Wireless Electricity?

[Phillip Swanson]

Last week the Wall Street Journal reported that Apple was testing out a new way to charge future versions of the iPhone. An international patent application from Apple has a company called WiTricity caught in the middle of the speculation.

WiTricity, which started in 2007, has garnered a lot of attention since their inception and even demoed their technology at a TED talk in 2009. Heck, Toyota has even invested in and collaborated with the company. The techonology utilizes the energy of oscillating magnetic fields to supply power to electronic devices wirelessly. The only caveat is each device must have a WiTricity dongle or device coupled with it to to be powered.

The patent Apple applied for called "Wireless power utilization in a local computing environment," cites the same technology used in WiTricity, hence the link between the two companies. In the Apple patent your iMac would be the source of resonance power with all of the devices situated in front of your computer from keyboards and mice to phones an iPads, being able to be charged within 1 meter area.

This would be awesome. I hate changing the batteries in my keyboard, and plugging things in. Please let me be even lazier....

Source: MacRumors

[Mes]

I wonder what's the efficiency rating of wireless charging?

[J Sweeney]

That's could be a lot of radiation.

[Outrager]

I have an old Logitech wireless keyboard and I only had to change batteries in it after a year of use. But I can see this being good for mice and iPads and iPhones.

[nickkim79]

Remote charging was developed in war situations by Nikola Tesla...never made it to mainstream yet though. I'm worried about potential cancer risk given the immense magnetic fields required to charge a battery...

[cranie]

Hello..Powermat anyone?? Oh and forget using your debit/credit cards. Those will be wiped clean with this.

[Axecaster]

Remote charging was developed in war situations by Nikola Tesla...never made it to mainstream yet though. I'm worried about potential cancer risk given the immense magnetic fields required to charge a battery...

Tesla first came to my mind as well after reading this article.

[emckissack]

Sonicare tooth brushes allready do this.
Great idea. No metal to metal contact to charge.

[Silverado1987]

So I have to use a case on my phone to charge it wirelessly. Ummm power mat lol

[SirTimothy1]

Tesla first came to my mind as well after reading this article.

Yeah Tesla had plans to power the whole world with wireless, free electricity. This technology is so old haha

[dz302]

That's could be a lot of radiation.

Hi, i just seen your comment and was hoping you could explain how radiation could be developed by rapid pos/neg magnetic polarity exchanges. Might we need molecular interaction to even begin worrying about this? Sorry, I was just wondering

[Own3d]

Remote charging was developed in war situations by Nikola Tesla...never made it to mainstream yet though. I'm worried about potential cancer risk given the immense magnetic fields required to charge a battery...

Very true. He was WAY ahead of his and our time.

[s4mb4]

It sorta makes me sad to think that Apple is the only tech company really trying to attract the masses with things like this. Palm and HP tried. HTC keeps trying. Blackberry is almost dead.....

[virtualcappy]

It sorta makes me sad to think that Apple is the only tech company really trying to attract the masses with things like this. Palm and HP tried. HTC keeps trying. Blackberry is almost dead.....

I don't think this is new or just apple (people have already commented on the power mat).

Shouldn't we be calling this wireless power not wireless electricity? We're talking about photons here (at least the wireless part) not electrons.

[thazsar]

Hi, i just seen your comment and was hoping you could explain how radiation could be developed by rapid pos/neg magnetic polarity exchanges. Might we need molecular interaction to even begin worrying about this? Sorry, I was just wondering

Agree! Magnets don't create radiation but long-term effects on the human body might emerge if we were continually surrounded by oscillating magnetic fields.