Silicon Valley youngster Pi on Monday claimed it had developed the world's first wireless charger that does away with cords or mats to charge devices.
Pi chargers, about the size of a small table vase, operate on standard charging technology used in Apple or Android smartphones designed to be powered up wirelessly.
But instead of cords or mats, the conical creation charges smartphones with magnetic waves.
Magnetic fields are an ideal way to safely send energy to portable electronics, said Pi chief technology officer Lixin Shi, who co-created the charger with John MacDonald.
The trick was bending magnetic waves to find smartphones, the co-founders said during a presentation for an AFP journalist at the TechCrunch Disrupt startup scrum in San Francisco.
[...] The pair figured out how to shape the magnetic field so energy could be beamed to smartphones placed or in use within a foot of a Pi.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by maxwell demon on Tuesday September 19 2017, @10:46PM (1 child)
I guess people with pacemakers should stay away from those chargers.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 19 2017, @11:16PM
I guess people with money should stay away from those two inventors ...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 19 2017, @10:54PM
My tadpoles are remotely impregnating the hunks of feces trapped inside your asshole. Despite how much you clench, your feces can never be safe from my fetid cock's tadpole sniper shot! Now, a mystical and legendary substance shall come forth...!
(Score: 5, Interesting) by leftover on Tuesday September 19 2017, @10:56PM (7 children)
An oscillating magnetic field strong enough to induce|rectify|generate 5VDC at 2 amps a foot away, no problem. Just don't reach for your phone wearing a ring or a bracelet. Or walk by wearing any of several body piercing loopy things. (Ouch!) They don't mention the frequency but it can't be allowed to affect hearing aids, pacemakers, etc. I really do not intend to piss on anyone's parade but making the basic coupling work is not the problem. N. Tesla demonstrated a number of ways and many people since have rediscovered them.
OR could this be another VC magnet for pump-and-dump? If so, more power to them!
Bent, folded, spindled, and mutilated.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 19 2017, @11:12PM (5 children)
"bending magnetic waves" my ass.
If they *could* do that without the help of a big chunk of 1860s style forged iron (or a 1990s style supercooled magnet of even more stupendous proportions), they'd have a Nobel price already. And we'd have heard about it through Arxiv and not through their press statement.
If this isn't VC bait, I'll buy two working ones in 6 months ROTFL
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 19 2017, @11:35PM (1 child)
Have you ever tried to pay for shit while rolling around the ground? Good luck bub.
(Score: 5, Funny) by MostCynical on Wednesday September 20 2017, @01:27AM
Well, if he's rolling on a contactless paypoint, with his credit cards in his pocket, he could pay several times..
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Tuesday September 19 2017, @11:54PM (2 children)
I don't know how this apply specifically to "wireless charging of current mobiles", but have you heard of phased array [wikipedia.org]?
Even if they'd have parasitic maxima/minina, with enough individual emitters you can concentrate the majority of the EM energy inside a (neighboring) space region and have the parasitic ones fall under a threshold.
Go into 10GHz range, the half wavelength antenna is 1.5 cm - simplistically, you can deploy about 5 of them on the apparent height of that cone (shown by TFA) if you orient them vertically.
Other geometrical arrangements for the emitting dipoles may be more efficient - eg at 45deg on the cone generator, use two interlaced phased arrays with orthogonal orientation, power/phase them as needed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by jcross on Wednesday September 20 2017, @12:50AM (1 child)
Or even more simplistically, who's to say it isn't just mechanically orienting its coils or something to that effect? There could even be a mu-metal shield involved. I'll admit the cone would be a crappy shape for that sort of arrangement though.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 20 2017, @01:56PM
i think with a dual umbrella shaped mu-metall funnel you can pretty much "pour" the magnetic field of earth into a battery ...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Fluffeh on Wednesday September 20 2017, @12:02AM
Yeah, that's the thing I look at here and wonder about. If the thing has a range of a foot or so, it's not really any better than a mat which I just plonk my phone on to charge it. If it has some real range to it - and can charge within a meter/yard of range.. it's going to fry anything metal trying to touch it. Even of it was smart enough to "point" the magnetic waves in the right place to focus on a point, surely the direct line between it and the phone itself are a no-go zone for metal circles of any shape/size.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Wednesday September 20 2017, @01:30AM
so, with enough VC money, could they make this an EMP generator?
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Wednesday September 20 2017, @03:31PM (1 child)
How does charging mat work, then? I thought that was magnetic, or electromagnetic.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 20 2017, @05:52PM
I think the difference is that the mat is a magnet that can charge things directly above (or below) itself.
It sounds like this thing somehow manages to seek and destr.... charge up the remote device.