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Imagine being able to power your smoke alarm in your house without ever needing to change your batteries. It would get it’s energy simply from the energy and vibrations from everything around it. That is the goal of Texas Instruments. They call it “energy scavenging”, and they say the reality is not that far away.

Employing the inventor of the original microchip Jack Kilby, Texas Instruments, currently the world’s third largest chip maker, is busy trying to break another electronic frontier.  This time by creating a chip that uses an infinitesimally small amount of energy to operate.  They actually did a demonstration showing a clock being run on...get this...grapes. 

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Tired of all those chargers for all of your gadgets?  Cameras, cell phones, PSPs, laptops, everything has a power cord even if it’s portable.  In a few years that may be a thing of the past (well, maybe more than a few years).  Intel has been researching wireless charging technology and has shown it off for the first time.

Intel’s system uses two metal rings connected by to a power amplifier.  The two rings transmit power to any device close to it.  Sure, it’s not entirely efficient (the numbers seem to say it’s only about 75 percent efficient when transmitting 60 watts two feet), but it given time that could improve.  The Wired article assures that the technology is safe for humans, so that’s a plus.

Imagining the day when all our gadgets could be charged wirelessly, when laptops aren’t bound to the wall when the battery runs out makes me quite happy.  I doubt that day will come very soon, but it’d be nice if it did.

Read [Wired]

We’ve all seen it happen time and time again. What was hot and happening even six months ago, is suddenly a dinosaur. It’s the nature of the ever-evolving technology game. Which is why industry giant Intel may just be well served by sitting up and taking note that the maker of cell-phone chips Qualcomm, just may be a major force to be reckoned with these days. 

With a latest innovation, the Snapdragon, Qualcomm packs a rather mighty punch in a tiny package. An engineer for the company demonstrated a palm-sized circuit board capable of displaying high-definition video. While a fairly high quality video image is nothing new to write home about, what did make it pretty special was it’s microprocessor chip, the Snapdragon. This micro-chip drives the display with less than half the power of a similar chip recently introduced by Intel. Qualcomm designers further sweeten the deal by saying that it will also cost less.

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I will try and make this as straightforward as possible, but please remember that we are talking about wireless electricity here, not soap… What is eCoupled technology? Wireless electrical power. It works by transferring energy from one device to another through a shared electromagnetic field.

eCoupled technology can be utilized essentially anywhere traditional power needs exist. Power and data can be efficiently transmitted to virtually any electrical device without wires or constraints. This means that eCoupled allows for intelligent cordless charging of consumer electronics devices such as cell phones, digital music players, cameras and PDAs.

eCoupled technology communicates with the object it is powering, allowing for feedback on the operation and status of the powered device. It also reduces or eliminates exposed physical power plug connections and reduces the risk of arcing and shorting by eliminating exposed conductors. eCoupled technology has efficiencies near that of plug and socket connections and allows a “charger” to supply power to one device or simultaneously to multiple devices and can even mix AC and DC power. eCoupled technology allows for the elimination of external ports, instead of plugs and connectors, the primary and secondary need only be placed in close proximity.

Consumers can clearly benefit from new product designs, increased functionality, increased mobility and longer service life, but what will it cost and how long will we have to hold our breath until we can use it? More answers to come at CES…

Read [eCoupled]