Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Wireless Electricity Becomes a Reality

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 04 Dec 2002 22:34:42 -0500

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,743234,00.asp
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Home > News and Analysis > Wireless Electricity Becomes a Reality

Click to Enlarge

December 3, 2002

Wireless Electricity Becomes a Reality

By
Lance Ulanoff

Total posts: 5

Imagine a world where all your portable devices can be charged and powered simply by placing them on a desktop. Chip manufacturer MobileWise has gone well beyond imagining such a world and this week unveiled "a conductive solution" that it believes can make it all possible.

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During a mid-day press conference in chilly New York City, MobileWise showed off a handful of functioning prototype powerbases and retrofitted mobile devices that all use the company's new MobileWise chipset and enable "Wire-Free" electric power. One chip, the tiny Adapter Controller, goes inside the mobile device and the other, the Contact Controller, gets built into the power base station. These power bases, which were shown in a wide variety of shapes, sizes and colors, are each covered in an array of gold-plated contacts. The retrofitted mobile devices also have a pair of contracts. With properly configured handheld devices, the bases can, according to company CEO Andy Goren, change any flat surface into a charging/power station.

The patent-pending technology behind the MobileWise is, on the surface, quite simple. The adapter chip inside the handheld device will, when placed on a base station, receive a very small electrical signal and message from the base controller chip that will power up the adapter chip. The base controller chip will sense for polarity. If there is none (say you place your hand on the base) then it does nothing. If it does find polarity and then a signal from the adapter chip, it will then read information about the voltage level necessary to run the mobile device and begin charging and powering it. Because of the array of contacts—from dozens to hundreds, depending on base size—there's no need to place the device in a special spot or position on the base. In fact, during the demonstration we saw the bases accept multiple devices, charging and powering them all at once.

The solution is not actually entirely "wire free", however. The base station is plugged into an AC adapter and can deliver up to 30V DC to an individual device. It's also, according to Goren, completely safe, and if any charge were delivered to a person, it would be at the level of a low-voltage battery, virtually imperceptible to humans and certainly not harmful, he added. The final base units will also, he said, be waterproof and protected from electrostatic charges.

Despite calls for MobileWise to manufacture the bases, Goren said the company plans instead on delivering the chipsets to partners who will likely build the adapter chip and proper contacts into their products and OEM the power base manufacturing to another company. MobileWise showed a variety of colors and form factors for the bases.

Acer has already partnered with MobileWise and, according to Goren, may ship a MobileWise-enabled notebook by Q1 of next year. But MobileWise has, it seems, even more intriguing plans on the horizon. The company is already in discussion with a couple of major office furniture manufacturers to build the power array bases and controller chips into furniture. Apparently, these bases are for more than just mobile devices. Properly-equipped televisions, lamps and more could be powered by the bases—Goren even had an HDTV that worked with one of the larger ones. Later next year, MobileWise expects to add data handshake capabilities to the chipset, allowing, once the signal is split, data delivery over the same contacts.

While no shipping units currently exist, MobileWise said the adapter chips run roughly $1.25 a piece adding, it said, just a few dollars in manufacturing costs to mobile devices and the base stations could, in units of 100,000 cost roughly $11 to manufacturers. Goren said he expects a mid-sized base (roughly 12 by 18 inches) to sell for $160 street. Not every mobile device will have to be retrofitted, by the way. MobileWise says it expects to see a handful of aftermarket mobile device adapters available sometime next year, as well.

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