Intel demonstrates powering up without plugging in

Imagine juicing up your laptop computer or cell phone without plugging them into an electrical socket. That's a luxury that could be provided by wireless power transmission, a concept that has been bandied about for decades but is creeping closer to becoming viable.

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Ambient electromagnetic radiation--emitted from Wi-Fi transmitters, cell-phone antennas, TV masts, and other sources--could be converted into enough electrical current to keep a battery topped up, says Markku Rouvala, a researcher from the Nokia Research Centre, in Cambridge, U.K …

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Pardon the cliche, but it's one of the holiest of Holy Grails of technology: Wireless power.

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At the Intel Developer Forum here, Intel Chief Technology Officer Justin Rattner showed off a number of technologies in computing, robotics, and communication that he cited as evidence that Ray Kurzweil's concept of "singularity," when machine intelligence surpasses human intelli …

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In the late 19th century, the realization that electricity could be coaxed to light up a bulb prompted a mad dash to determine the best way to distribute it. At the head of the pack was inventor Nikola Tesla, who had a grand scheme to beam elec­tricity around the world.

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Each year, Technology Review publishes its list of 10 emerging technologies that its editors believe will be particularly important over the next few years.

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Cords and cables have been a reality for consumer devices since the advent of home electronics.

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We all know and love our WiFi laptops, 3G and DECT phones, and wireless TVs, keyboards, and mice. Thing is, that freedom is always interrupted by the need to re-tether and juice-up the rechargeables.

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Everything else is going wireless--phones, Internet, television, e-mail and music sharing. Now add power to the list.

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"There are so many autonomous devices such as cell phones and laptops that have emerged in the last few years," said Assistant Professor Marin Soljacic from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and one of the researchers behind the work.

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