VentureBeat

Intel is mainly known for its microprocessors, but it’s another technology that was unveiled at this week’s Intel Developer Forum (IDF) that has a lot of people talking: Wireless power.

To some, the idea may sound like pure science fiction, but it is very real. Various groups of scientists around the world have been working on it for years, but the problem has mainly been the efficiency, or rather the inefficiency with which power is transfered over the air. Most of it is lost before it can reach its destination. On Thursday however, Intel showed that it could transmit 60 watts of power over a few feet while maintaining 75 percent efficiency.

“The power pack for you laptop isn’t that efficient,” Intel chief technology officer Justin Rattner told USA Today in an interview.

And that’s really the key. While it would be great to power a light bulb wirelessly, as Intel demoed at IDF, the real key is being able to charge our ever-growing array of devices wirelessly. I live in a fairly small apartment and have no less than 4 surge protectors, not so much because I’m afraid of power surges on all my equipment, but more because I need all those outlets for the number of gadgets I have.

The best use of wireless charging will be for wireless devices themselves. It’s tiresome to have to remember to plug in my phone, my iPods, my laptops and anything else I routinely use on the go. Imagine if these devices could recharge simply by being in your home. In fact, Rattner says Intel is working on a new laptop that will accept wireless power charges.

Of course, that’s a ways off, right now the technology only works over a few feet and that’s using very large coils (see the picture above) to send the electricity. Also problematic is the fact that the electromagnetic field made by this technology can interfere with other functionality of devices.

This technology is not dangerous to humans since it use magnetic fields to transmit energy and not electric fields. Magnetic fields can pass through the human body without harming anything.

MIT researchers made headlines last year with their “WiTricity” (Wireless Electricity) test that also lit a light bulb from several feet away, but at a much worse efficiency than the Intel test. Now those same scientists are said to have jacked up the efficiency to a pretty incredible 90 percent, meaning they’ve doubled efficiency in a year’s time. If true, it’s exciting to think about where this tech will be in another year.

Startups such as Powercast, WildCharge and Powerbeam are working on the technology as well.

Nikola Tesla, the scientist who was working on wireless power around the turn of the last century, would be proud.

Watch the video below for more on Intel’s efforts:

[photo: flickr/nick nunns and Intel]

Powerbeam, a new Silicon Valley start-up, is working on a revolutionary idea: Using a laser to beam light, the energy of which would be used to power your laptop or other device without having to plug it in.

PowerBeam says its powerful laser can transmit more electrical power than other methods, and it comes with a safety feature. Dean Takahashi of the Merc has seen the product demonstrated, and he’s duly enthusiastic.

As Dean describes it, here’s how it would work for regular people: You’d sit in a room with your laptop, and a laser atop the light fixture would be directed by a camera system (that’s a hard part) to find your laptop’s solar receptor (the solar cell would be on your laptop). You potentially wouldn’t need batteries.

Obviously, there are huge infrastructure challenges, because you’d need these lasers, fixtures and detection systems in lots of places before regular people on the go can use them. As other recent solar cell start-ups like Nanosolar, Miasole have found out, the science isn’t the big deal. It’s the engineering and execution that will make or break a company. But imagine the potential of such a company, if the laser power itself were to come from solar panels, so that the entire energy transmission system would be solar. No wonder the company is planning to raise venture money. With venture capitalists so passionate about the clean energy area (big-name John Doerr was so choked up at the recent TED conference that he was in tears), Powerbeam may just find some backing.

Read Dean’s story, which mentions the other wireless power efforts to date, including the MIT research effort under Marin Soljacic; Powercast, a Pennsylvania start-up that says it has a safe wireless power system that uses radios to transmit power; and WildCharge, which plans to sell pads that wireless charges cellphones placed on it.