Wireless-power pioneers band together

The Wireless Power Consortium has opened its doors in the hope of building standards for wirelessly recharging gadgets, and perhaps even getting some products into the market. The Consortium includes pioneers such as Fulton Innovation and ConvienientPower Limited, and silicon manufacturers such as National Semiconductor and …

[Paul]

Kettles..

Wireless kettles seem an obvious place for this sort of technology do they not? In fact, lots of kitchen and bathroom products would seem sensible, what with all the water around.

[Bryce Prewitt]

This isn't really wireless, now is it?

I mean, not in the Tesla sense, eh? We're not talking beaming power through thin air. Instead, the connection just isn't traditional like wall plugs. The device still has to be on or near the unit providing power. It's not like I can walk ten or twenty yards away and still have it operating, which is what wireless implies. This is more 'cordless' or 'baseless' than anything. Also... proximity tends to imply that a device only needs to be within close contact of the unit providing power, not sitting directly on it, which is what all of these require to charge/power, yes? (apologies if the proximity/needing to be directly on the 'base' bit is off, rest of my point still stands though)

Talk about misleading terminology. Same fucking deal with 'cloud' computing. All marketing bullshit.

Maybe the reason no one is buying into it is because it's not fantastic or really even useful. Get me a laptop or television that draws power truly wirelessly and I'll be all over it. Until then all this bullshit can fuck off. We were all spoiled by the Jetsons growing up. Nothing less than the promises of the space age will do!

[michael]

wirless?

wirless is only realy better where the cable is annoying this usual means when wirless will go further than the 1-5 meters you can get with a cable or in situations where cables are dangrous other than that cables are better cos they are less complex till they start showing some proper uses in those categories it will not be widely taken up

[Anonymous Coward]

wirless?

"wireless mouse that recharges from a mouse mat" which genius thought that one up? Where would the mouse pad get its power from? a wire maybe? or a magic charging desk set to charge the mouse pad to charge the mouse. Oh hang on where would the desk get its power from...

Mines the one with a pack of triple As in the pocket.

[Shaun]

Mouse

The mouse sounds like a good idea though, I'd get one*

*probably not, because my wired ball mouse works fine

[Colin Millar]

Wireless is misleading

There are perfectly good names for this stuff - inductive for the techys or contactless for the layman - calling it wireless suggests that the marketing department tail is wagging the dog (again).

[Robbie Simpson]

Old news

Inductive mice have been around for a couple of years, but they've yet to convince me to stop just using rechargeable batteries...

[Anonymous Coward]

a wireless mouse that recharges from its mouse mat

Stupidest! Idea! Ever! An inductive pad sitting on my desk producing a relatively strong pulsing magnetic field 24 hrs a day? Don't set your floppies or tapes on that desk! Within weeks all your ballpoint pens, paperclips, jewelry, wristwatches, calculators, etc. would be nicely magnetized.

[Oli]

Phone Charger?

Having seen the first reports of this a while back, the only use i can think of that would make me invest in this tech would be some sort of pad built into either a desk or kitchen worktop that i would simply drop my ipod and mobile phone onto when i get from work and they would charge. Or similarly in the office if my phone was on my desk it would charge. Sadly its only a fad, as we have all had to find a solution to not having enough power points in close enough proximity to where we need our devices.

Nice idea but like has been said before, give me a use for it that is actually new or groundbreaking and i'll think about it. Til then, move along please....