New Charger Harvests Energy from Wi-Fi Signals
but if they make wi-fi hotspots more efficient... / billing?
http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/10/01/12/1628216/Be ... »
So if there's all this excess energy in the air, should it simply be curtailed, or harnessed? If it's harnessed for wireless battery charging, the next logical question is who pays? Do we need a billing standard? Could you choose to charge your phone just by sitting in a Starbucks, and have the electricity cost billed to your Starbucks card? (Or AT&T bill?)
In a situation where the hotspot is not operating at full capacity, it might be able to function without impacting anyone else, although I'd like to see proof of that, and of course I expect the hotspot would still draw more power from the AC outlet.
It would be a cool idea though. Having a device that whenever inside a car, or a coffee shop, at your cubible or in your home charges itself just by *being* there.
"We don't usually associate RCA with new and innovative technologies, but we think know they're on to something with its Airnergy power system, which harvests energy from WiFi signals. Shipping this summer, the pocketable dongle picks up WiFi signals from the air and manages to charge an internal battery through some magic inside. You don't have to connect to a network, you just have to be in a place that has signal, and it will automatically charge up. As if we weren't intrigued already, they told us t...
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Gosh, this sounds like such cool Star Trek futuristic tek!!!!
Additionaly, a lot of electronics simply by virtue of being plugged into the wall create a circuit that "bleeds" some energy, whether the device is on or not. So yeah, there is a lot of incentive to improve efficiency, especially as we migrate to electro...
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