Wireless energy

Right in time for the upcoming CES 2009 in Las Vegas the issue of Wireless Energy appears again, which means the wireless transmission of electricity. Promising, especially for all types of mobile devices, but is this technology really applicable?

From time to time you can read about breakthroughs in Wireless Energy research. Last year at this time in some blogs was speculated, that Apple is going to bring a Wireless Energy docking station for the new MacBook Air on the market. So it is, however, never.

demo video by Wipower

And what's really new about the technology? Nothing. All systems of wireless power transmission are based on induction. A well known principle that has long been used in households, like in electric toothbrushes or induction hobs.

Much discussed are poor efficiency in the transmission and possible health risks associated with this technology. Till now no objective research results can be found in any case.

I think, that new sources of energy (see report on innovative energy sources) in mobile devices will have far greater potential than the wireless transmission of electricity.

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Wireless USB - the end of the cable era?

The technology has been available since several years, but now the first wireless USB devices will hit the market. The new radio technology seems to make the final breakthrough to succeed in 2009.

Wireless USB is in development since 2004. There have been repeated delays due to disputes at different development groups and regulatory obstacles.

Wireless USB works in a radius of about 3 meters with full 480Mbits/s at 10 meters the data throughput is even at 110 Mbit/s. Unlike Wi-Fi wireless Lan Wireless USB is especially made for high resolution multimedia transmissions.

IOGEAR will bring in October 2008 a USB to VGA transmitter on the market. If the wireless USB dongle is connected to a USB port on the laptop, according to manufacturer pictures at resolutions up to 1600 x 1200 (UXGA) or 1680 x 1050 pixels (WSXGA +) get transferred wirelessly to the receiving unit.

Iogear Wireless USB to VGA transmitter (source: Iogear)

Other devices such as a wireless docking station from Kensington or Dell notebooks with integrated wireless USB module are also shortly before launch.

When this technology really becomes popular, in many offices the often annoying cable clutter on the desk will be reduced significantly.

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Multi-Gigabit wireless

In a few years cables could be history in the home data transport. At the Georgia Electronic Design Centre researchers are currently working on the so-called Multi-Gigabit wireless data transmission, which should replace the wires in home networks and computer centres within the next three years.

The researchers focused on a frequency of 60 giga heart because this frequency ranges because there is no license needed for this range in the USA. Until now they have reached a transfer rate of 15 gigabits per second (Gbps) over the distance of one meter. At a distance of 10 meters they still reach 10 Gbps and over 5 meters still 5 Gbps.


In less than two years, the first connections for fast data transfer between external hard disks, laptops, cell phones, MP3 players, digital cameras, TV, DVD players, etc. should be available. With this system laptops could be synchronized within seconds.


They also work on an adapter to make systems which until now worked via USB or FireWire to make them compatible with the new technology. Moreover they want to doubling the data throughput in the next year with keeping the yet low consumption of power. Links: Georgia Electronic Design Center

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