Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers said on June 7 they will soon be able to charge a computer or cell-phone battery from across a room, perhaps making the annoyance of wires or dead batteries a thing of the past.
MIT scientists and their wireless energy transfer technology may soon eliminate wires that tether our machines to wall sockets, or may keep batteries topped up and ready to go.
"This invention could free us from power cables and ideally replace batteries to a good extent, at least in the context of a home or office setting," said Aristeidis Karalis, a student member of the MIT team that worked four years on the problem.
The team at MIT, a top US academic laboratory, has shown their fledgling "WiTricity" technology can power a 60 watts bulb from a power source two meters (seven feet) away.
The technology is simple and based on resonance, which causes an object to vibrate when energy of a certain frequency is applied to it, said Marin Soljacic, a professor of physics at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Two resonant objects on the same resonance frequency can exchange energy efficiently, while interacting weakly with objects that are not on the same wavelength.
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