How about wireless lightbulbs? Or perhaps a toaster with no cord? Charge your laptop simply by setting it on your desk? How about a child-safe house that has absolutely no exposed outlets?
Researchers at MIT have shown that it’s possible to wirelessly power a 60-watt lightbulb sitting about two meters away from a power source. Using a remarkably simple setup…they have demonstrated, for the first time, that it is feasible to efficiently send that much power over such a distance.
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Wireless power transfer is an idea that’s more than 100 years old. In the 1890s, physicist and electrical engineer Nikola Tesla proposed beaming electricity through the air.
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The [MIT] team has minimized [safety issues] by making sure that the power is mainly in the form of a magnetic field, a form of energy to which the body is almost entirely insensitive.
[Source]
They’ve applied for a patent. I bet its not long before we see some form of this in new home construction.
