WiLife: WiTricity

A team from MIT have created a power system that can ‘beam’ power around the home without the need for wires or cables. A power-beaming copper coil mounted in a room’s ceiling could be used to power laptops, lights and other electronics. The Daily Mail explains:

Scientists have known for nearly two centuries that it is possible to transfer an electrical current from one coil of wire to another without them touching.

The phenomenon, called electromagnetic induction, is used in power transformers and electric motors around the world.

However, the coils in motors and transformers have to be close for power to pass from one to another. Attempting to transfer power over distances is impossible.

The breakthrough came when Dr Soljacic realised there was another way of transferring energy through the air.

Rather than sending power from a transmitter to a receiver as a conventional electromagnetic wave - the same form of radiation as light, radio waves and microwaves - he could use the transmitter to fill a room with a ‘non-radiative’ electromagnetic field.

DailyMail