Electricity Going Wireless

MIT Researchers reported last month that they successfully “beamed” a steady current of electricity to a lightbulb over a gap of 2 meters. Based on work imagined yet never produced by Nikola Tesla in the early 1900’s, the practical applications of wirelessly transmitting large amounts of electricity are endless.

Soljacic’s wireless power system harnesses oscillating electric and magnetic fields in a novel way. Although it doesn’t radiate energy as a radio antenna does, it transmits power across greater distances than a conventional transformer can.

The Radio Frequency Identification tags (RFID) that enable the convenient touch & go systems like London’s Oyster Card and many office-building access-cards are similar to this developing technology…just on a smaller scale – drawing minute amounts of power from radio frequencies instead of a battery.

Read the entire article at Science News.

Thanks, BoingBoing!