Standardize this, pretty please?
Researchers experiment with “evanescent coupling” as a way to wirelessly recharge mobile devices. I think that sounds like a brilliant idea. As soon as it is ready it should be written into international standards before people go around proprietizing it and we end up needing to have one wireless recharger for each device, like AC-adapters…
I can imagine a load of uses. Not only for devices like phones and media players – the ones you take out of your home – but for all cordless devices as well as those that could be. Imagine never having to replace the batteries in your remote controls. Or not needing to have base stations for toothbrushes, shavers and landline cordless phones all over the place. My cordless mouse would be even better if it didn’t have to be recharged.
Then there’s probably more than a few stationary that could use it, for example a smoke detector that feeds off wireless power would be able to keep its battery safely charged all the time. Would work for clocks as well, in many cases even for corded ones like clock radios that only need power to make some noise a few minutes a day.
I guess it would have to be limited to low power/short use devices or all the power in the air would make us face the same experience as a psychopathic kid’s hamster in a microwave oven, but there are enough possibilities to make wireless power as useful as a regular, old-fashioned outlet power.
And imagine the resource savings, I just got inspired to put my phone and the charger on the scales, and the charger weighed in at twice the weight of the phone, and that’s a clunky three year old low-range phone. What a freaking waste – not only the materials themselves, but also the costs and effects of shipping them across the globe.
Oh, and I bet it takes about three weeks from the breakthrough until someone puts the first “always ready to please” sex toys on the market. ;)
