One of the biggest drags of the iPhone – its battery — may one day be supplemented with a wireless charging system that recharges the device in your pocket or bag when you walk in the room.
At the TED Global conference in Oxford on Thursday, Eric Giler, CEO of Witricity, demonstrated an iPhone being recharged wirelessly by his company’s new system.
“You’d never have to worry about plugging these things in again,” he said.
Giler explained the system to the BBC (see the video above). He says the technology could be on the market within 18 months.
Witricity’s wireless charging system is based on the physics of “electromagnetic resonance,†the same principle that makes a wine glass shatter when an opera singer hits the right note.
But instead of sound energy, Witricity’s system transports power over electromagnetic waves. The system has two parts: A transmitter unit, plugged into a wall outlet, which uses a vibrating coil to create a resonant magnetic field. In the target gadget, a matching coil tuned to the same frequency transforms electromagnetic vibrations into juice for the device.
The system works without any physical contact. Other wireless charging systems, like Palm’s Touchstone, require contact between the gadget and the charging base.
The system is claimed to be safe, and will charge gadgets and devices within range, including bigger electronics like flat-screen TVs. Giler demonstrated a TV running on wireless power that is commercially-available.
Giler also showed the system recharging a T-Mobile G1 phone, which had all the components packed inside. The iPhone had to be fitted with a special sled.
“They don’t make it easy at Apple to get inside their phones so we put a little sleeve on the back,” he said.
Leander Kahney is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac.
Leander is a longtime technology reporter and the author of six acclaimed books about Apple, including two New York Times bestsellers: Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products and Inside Steve’s Brain, a biography of Steve Jobs.
He’s also written a top-selling biography of Apple CEO Tim Cook and authored Cult of Mac and Cult of iPod, which both won prestigious design awards. Most recently, he was co-author of Cult of Mac, 2nd Edition.
Leander has been reporting about Apple and technology for nearly 30 years.
Before founding Cult of Mac as an independent publication, Leander was news editor at Wired.com, where he was responsible for the day-to-day running of the Wired.com website. He headed up a team of six section editors, a dozen reporters and a large pool of freelancers. Together the team produced a daily digest of stories about the impact of science and technology, and won several awards, including several Webby Awards, 2X Knight-Batten Awards for Innovation in Journalism and the 2010 MIN (Magazine Industry Newsletter) award for best blog, among others.
Before being promoted to news editor, Leander was Wired.com’s senior reporter, primarily covering Apple. During that time, Leander published a ton of scoops, including the first in-depth report about the development of the iPod. Leander attended almost every keynote speech and special product launch presented by Steve Jobs, including the historic launches of the iPhone and iPad. He also reported from almost every Macworld Expo in the late ’90s and early ‘2000s, including, sadly, the last shows in Boston, San Francisco and Tokyo. His reporting for Wired.com formed the basis of the first Cult of Mac book, and subsequently this website.
Before joining Wired, Leander was a senior reporter at the legendary MacWeek, the storied and long-running weekly that documented Apple and its community in the 1980s and ’90s.
Leander has written for Wired magazine (including the Issue 16.04 cover story about Steve Jobs’ leadership at Apple, entitled Evil/Genius), Scientific American, The Guardian, The Observer, The San Francisco Chronicle and many other publications.
Leander has a postgrad diploma in artificial intelligence from the University of Aberdeen, and a BSc (Hons) in experimental psychology from the University of Sussex.
He has a diploma in journalism from the UK’s National Council for the Training of Journalists.
Leander lives in San Francisco, California, and is married with four children. He’s an avid biker and has ridden in many long-distance bike events, including California’s legendary Death Ride.
You can find out more about Leander on LinkedIn and Facebook. You can follow him on X at @lkahney or Instagram.
