The problem is that our devices need frequent charges, not that plugging in is especially inconvenient; this battle will be won on the battery-life front.
1) Batteries get enough capacity so you only need to charge them once a month.
2) Batteries can be fully charged in a short period of time, say one minute, we wouldn't bothered very much to have to plug them in once a day.
3) Carrying around a device at home or work for few hours a day will keep the device charged for a whole day (via the "superlens").
Any of the aforementioned solutions and perhaps few others would solve the issues we have with batteries in our handheld devices today. For cars, trains and other battery uses, that's another thing.
What was considered dangerous in the past is dangerous today.
It is what was not considered dangerous in the past what we know today it is dangerous, like x-rays(they used it with pregnant women and basically killed a lot of people for ten years), powerful RADAR, tobacco(yes you can see advertisements on youtube of how innocuous it was), benzene, asbestos, pfcs, nuclear radiation(Curie couple died from that).
It was only after being proven that a technology kills thousands of people, that this tech is controlled.
For me it is a great idea to find guinea pigs for testing new technologies, but don't test it with me against my will sending radiated energy in the air.
Hint: There's a reason this requires METAMATERIALS to work over any reasonable distance.
But inductive coupling? No - it won't even interact, which is what this article is about.
Inductive coupling means a couple of inductances interact with each other. This is the reason it is called "coupling". And yes, this interaction means photons, depending of the frequency of the resonator of higher or lower frequency.
They use a medium, a channel, the most efficient one is ferrite, but it could be the air, that usually it is very inefficient because the electromagnetic radiation escapes and is absorbed by other elements or just dissipated.
You could improve efficiency making it use resonance, that is you trick your design so in normal circumstances you reuse the electromagnetic energy that is reflected by the geometry of the space.
The problem (of all open systems instead of closed circuits)is what happens when your body acts as a lower impedance for this radiation than the medium. It could in fact absorb a big amount of energy on a very small amount of time.
Geometry of the body is very complex, small parts of your body could resonate with some frequencies, and when there is noise like in transitories you add lots of frequencies.
Like you do?
Do you understand non ionizing radiation?
Some people are so ignorant, that they don't even know what they don't know.
I can kill a rat with non ionizing radiation. I could introduce it on a microwave or put it under a laser, or in the oven(IR).
With enough energy density, I could create devastating effects on any living organism. Nature protects against natural sources of radiation, like the light of the sun, but does not protects about artificial ones, it is very simple to blind someone with a IR laser she does not see.
You can use non ionizing radiation to make resonate the electric nervous systems like the US army is testing, with enough energy it kills you(we need electric operated muscles like the heart and lungs to operate to live), and lots of other funny things.
Let's not get carried away here. We've been talking about wireless transmission of electrical power for a while now: http://blogs.intel.com/intellabs/2008/10/02/rattner_the_prom....
If it is, then consumption is too high. Few hours of use is not "fine". Sure, if I use it as just a phone it can last week.. but once I use it as a computer, it drains pretty quickly.
I agree that battery life doesn't need to improve that much if we could recharge it in a dramatically more convenient way, but 30 seconds charge every few hours sounds insane to me.
Anyway, smartphones last way more than 2 hours unless the battery has been abused for years.
And you could always bring juice with you if you have to use intensively for long periods your phone outside of civilization for some reason. Just pack eight 2700Mah Eneloops and you are fine. You need very simple transformer and usb connector.
Current phones are fine for that (especially with reasonable usage of "navigation" and extra battery as you said). 2hr-lasting phone wouldn't.
I'm not sure that I actually get with everything blaring (the quickest I uncharge my phone is when I have both radios going as I have a tablet using it as a tether) though it sometimes isn't so I carry an "emergency" battery charger with me when travelling.
My X1 Carbon laptop may not have the world's best battery life, but being able to recharge it to 80% in ~30 minutes is fantastic. It's saved me on many occasions when I've been heading out of the house and realized that I forgot to charge it or needed to charge in a coffee shop where I couldn't sit near the outlet.
I can only assume the lack of this charging speed in most products means that it's either quite detrimental to the battery longevity or the cost/weight of the electronics outweighs the benefit, or both.
You don't really charge your phone, you just put it on an allocated area of your desk.
a) you need to remember to do (my phone currently lives in my pocket at work when not in active use) and to undo - i.e. pick it up again when you wander off
b) needs you to be near your desk at some point. I can often be away from any power source for many hours at a time - more than long enough to drain an average smartphone's battery with reasonable use.