Apple Patents ‘PowerPort Extreme’ To Wirelessly Charge Your House’s Gadgets

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Everything else in our lives has gone wireless, but here we are, still slurping electricity through wires like a bunch of cavemen. When will it end? Soon, soothes Apple. The mad scientists in their lab at Cupertino have just patented a method to supply wireless charging to a number of nearby devices.

Right now, most wireless charging is accomplished by laying a device with a special battery or case against a pad. Not bad, but not truly wireless in the same way that WiFi is. Patently Apple has the skinny on how Apple’s new system would work:

Apple has been granted a patent today for their invention that relates to a system, method, and apparatus for wirelessly providing power from a wireless power supply to any of a plurality of peripheral devices.

Generally the patent relates to techniques and apparatus for providing useful amounts of power wirelessly to devices within a wireless charging environment. In one embodiment, the wireless charging environment can include various computing devices along the lines of a desktop computer, a laptop computer, net book computer, tablet computer, etc. In some cases, a wireless power supply will be able to be used to provide power wirelessly to various electronic devices such as and iPhone that includes a portable power supply for mobile operation.

That’s pretty true. It sounds like they are talking about some kind of PowerPort Extreme that will wirelessly keep all your gadgets charged in a nearby radius, although the patent also suggests that such a power system could be hidden inside future Macs.

Whatever form it takes, it can’t happen soon enough. I’m not the only one sick of cables, right?

Source: Patently Apple

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