What is Digg?556 Comments
- CuriousSurfer, on 08/22/2008, -8/+900About damned time. Nikola Tesla had the idea, and possibly put it to use, as early as the late 1800s.
- drqshadow, on 08/24/2008, -1/+642Sweet, now I can leech off my neighbor's wifi AND electricity!
- dazparkour, on 08/24/2008, -10/+397It's a trap!
The tinfoil hats will attract the power and BOOM! Headshot. - victorycig, on 08/24/2008, -10/+356Last article I read about magnetic wireless power indicated only about 30% of the energy transmitted actually reaches the device. In our current fossil fuel energy crisis, we can't afford that inefficiency. The technology will likely become more efficient in the coming years, though.
- LeviTheSmith, on 08/24/2008, -23/+323Nikola? I think you mean Einstein and Edison, who is this Nikola you speak of?
/was a stab at what they taught my generation in school
//hardly anyone my age knows who Nikola Tesla is :( - kilomang, on 08/24/2008, -17/+251Didn't Tesla do this first?
- MMSQ3, on 08/24/2008, -4/+190It's SO going to cause cancer... just becasue, everything cool causes cancer at first...
- m4csrgh3yk3v, on 08/24/2008, -16/+178Protip: Most electric toothbrushes do it already.
- xptweakerntn, on 08/24/2008, -12/+160I logged in to my Firefox on my freshly installed Suse 11.0 KDE4 (no passwords saved) just to reply to you. I was a Junior last year, and I brought Tesla up to my American history teacher. Noone in the class, or the teacher, had ever even heard of him. Surprisingly enough, I was the only student to know who The Wizard of Menlo Park was too. But that the teacher knew. Because it was in our book. Teachers suck.
- inactive, on 08/24/2008, -2/+127Yeah and he had that teleportation thing for his cats!
- oxdeltaxo, on 08/24/2008, -4/+112You thank Tesla's assistant and the millitary for swiping all his documents after he died.
- nomadxx7, on 08/24/2008, -18/+123 "The trick with wireless power is not can you do it; it's can you do it safely and efficiently," Intel researcher Josh Smith said in an online video explaining the breakthrough.
"It turns out the human body is not affected by magnetic fields; it is affected by elective fields. So what we are doing is transmitting energy using the magnetic field not the electric field."
Not to be a cynic but with this being a brand-new technology how can we say it's safe and effective? Some things (i.e. cigarettes) were found to harmful years down the road. Now with cell phones we are having a battle royale regarding their safety (do they release radiation; is it harmful to us?).
I'm not trying to rain on anyone's parade but seeing us human beings are run by electrical impulses and supposedly have some magnetic fields that we produce naturally. Just seems that in a technological sense that this is a giant step forward. The thing we need to realize is it may not be safe for us. Personally I'd like to see what's happening on the genetic level before I decided to step into one of these fields. And to the poster about me that talked about Tesla if we are talking about a Tesla coil, we can't stand in that field without being zapped to a crisp.
I just don't understand how sending power across an electrical field or magnetic field wouldn't hurt us. Hell they say high-tension wires are harmful for us - Garofoli, on 08/24/2008, -0/+91Wow... 3 meme's in two sentences. Congrats!
- nerddtvg, on 08/24/2008, -2/+86Ah Tesla, another of your dreams coming true. Unfortunately it's just not efficient enough yet.
- kronik, on 08/24/2008, -2/+78Wouldn't the strong magnetic fields damage electronics?
- forcedfx, on 08/24/2008, -3/+74Werd, that's how my Oral-B recharges. It's pretty pimp.
- geonixx, on 08/24/2008, -2/+70Just think of how this technology could solve our gas problems..... If they get it working well, power companies could install wireless transmitters all along the roadways, making it so electric cars never need to stop to recharge.
- JorgeGT, on 08/24/2008, -0/+68Maxwell equations do not apply when you're trying to get lots of money from stupid shareholders.
- Jyaif, on 08/24/2008, -2/+68div E = - d B/d t
How can there be no electric field when there's a magnetic field? - Garofoli, on 08/24/2008, -1/+67Dugg for calling a toothbrush 'pimp'.
- kelmaster1, on 08/24/2008, -2/+65Edison was a dick. The reason he was the "inventor" of so many things is he could patent them faster and more easily than others could. Tesla was a genius of our time.
- twertyto, on 08/24/2008, -0/+62Didn't someone make this comment first?
- Avaseal, on 08/24/2008, -3/+61Woohoo! so many opportunities unlocked if they're able to pull this off safely..i wonder what the maximum power transmission will be
- brihar73, on 08/24/2008, -0/+53"POWER" must be more powerful than "power".
- rdoger6424, on 08/24/2008, -0/+52I see someone's taken corporate physics
- GoneFishing, on 08/24/2008, -1/+52You kidding me? This was out 2 years ago at MIT under Prof. Marin Soljacic, and he already had 50% efficiency.
See Digg Story for overview:
http://digg.com/general_sciences/Is_wireless_power ... - wallish, on 08/24/2008, -0/+47@alanr19
Tesla did actually utilize transmitted power, but on a bit of an uncontrolled scale. At his Colorado Springs lab he transmitted power to distant light bulbs using longitudinal waves.
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla#Colorado ...
"In Colorado, Tesla carried out various long distance power transmission experiments. Tesla effect is the application of a type of electrical conduction (that is, the movement of energy through space and matter; not just the production of voltage across a conductor). Through longitudinal waves, Tesla transferred energy to receiving devices. He sent electrostatic forces through natural media across a conductor situated in the changing magnetic flux and transferred power to a conducting receiving device (such as Tesla's wireless bulbs)."
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If a genius of Tesla's scale was born every generation since 1900 we'd easily have flying cars, fusion, and kick-ass colonies on Mars. - SoulDesigner, on 08/24/2008, -1/+46I count three sentences myself.
- Sashwan, on 08/24/2008, -0/+45"It turns out the human body is not affected by magnetic fields; it is affected by elective fields. So what we are doing is transmitting energy using the magnetic field not the electric field."
So er you people with pacemakers... - inactive, on 08/24/2008, -0/+41Screeeew you, I want my magic electricity
- brkhobowriter, on 08/24/2008, -5/+44No more tripping over laptop power adapters!
- pyronik, on 08/24/2008, -0/+39USB ports have a dedicated wire for just power 5v, its not being powered by the data wires.
- srg13, on 08/24/2008, -2/+41That is just induction - it works essentially like a transformer. Basically, you have a coil of wire in the stand, and one in the toothbrush inside the other coil. When current flows through the first coil, it creates a magnetic field which induces a current in the coil in the toothbrush, letting it charge its batteries.
I'm not sure if the method in the article works in exactly the same way, otherwise we'd have had this for years... - nakp88d, on 08/24/2008, -8/+46How many of you people really had so much of respect for Tesla before watching The Prestige? No Seriously.
- Soliden, on 08/24/2008, -1/+38Hasn't anyone seen David Bowie in The Prestige?
- FunkyWitDaSysTm, on 08/24/2008, -0/+37kind of ionic, huh?
- MeatyMcBeef, on 08/24/2008, -18/+5542.
- bob_the_alien, on 08/24/2008, -2/+37Yeah, but do you really think they would, I mean, only way that would happen is if they could come up with a way to charge for the electricity used. Nothing is free ya know.
- LeviTheSmith, on 08/24/2008, -1/+34During some lesson at school, they were talking about the great pioneers of our time. Not one person mentioned Tesla. I suggest you watch this(4 part series) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTiiblwwLPk
And http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gt8Y93k0pB0&feature ...
Tells you a lot about the man who gave us AC power. - Kristijan12, on 08/24/2008, -0/+31Well he said it right:
"Gentleman the present is yours, but the future is mine!" - Dylson, on 08/24/2008, -1/+30Kind of ironic huh?
- Playgear, on 08/24/2008, -1/+29I was just thinking the exact same.
"This HAS to cause cancer... Either that or turn men sterile." - inactive, on 08/24/2008, -3/+31Good man. Now go grab your torch and get a possie together and burn down the observatory.
- dpl_, on 08/24/2008, -0/+27We are talking about power transmission, not power generation. The correct comparison would be to a high voltage power line (which is significantly more "efficient" than 30%)
- TheMightyFruit, on 08/24/2008, -14/+40Over 9000, at least.
- Tyrghast, on 08/24/2008, -3/+29Don't cross the beams!
- SuicideMouse, on 08/24/2008, -0/+26@ DestroyFascism: HAHAHAHA! Your name is "DestroyFascism" and yet you support a government stealing papers/ideas because it could be bad if it was seen by "the wrong people"?
Though it's totally OK for ONE government to see it and keep it all secret as much as possible.
Information should be free and spread as widely as possible. I'm sure he would have wanted it to be shared amongst the people of the world. He saw potential for good, the people who stole his stuff saw potential for evil, and I don't think it was anyone else's potential... - JQP123, on 08/24/2008, -1/+26"... only about 30% of the energy transmitted actually reaches the device."
Needless to say, this severly limits the applications but I'm sure there will still be some interesting uses. For example, a universal charger for cell phones ... no need for an adaptor, just place your phone (any phone with the necessary circuitry) on a special charging pad. Over shorter distances the efficiency is likely to be more acceptable. - aenegeling, on 08/24/2008, -5/+30Don't stand in the ray?
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