I’m out of the office today but here’s today’s daily Tech fix.
Apple’s mission to cut the cables out of your life continues. The tech giant recently filed a patent application that outlines a wireless hotspot, but not like you know it: instead, any devices in the area would get charged. Is this tech headed to the iPhone 6?
The application, entitled ‘wireless power utilisation in a local computing environment’, hints heavily that the folks at Cupertino are going for wireless charging within a select zone for the next iPhone.
Wireless charging is a great idea, one gaining some mainstream acceptance with the Nokia Lumia 920, freeing you from the jungle of wires that plagues desks, but the current real world options aren’t all that practical. Most of today’s wireless chargers still have wires, and use inductive charging, meaning the wireless charger and your phone need to be close together or touching.
Apple’s patent application uses a different approach to wireless charging. The scheme uses a near-field magnetic resonance (NFMR) power supply to charge up nearby devices that also have a NFMR resonator circuit built in. This, in theory, could power up and charge multiple devices such as mice, keyboards and multiple phones making everything wireless, battery-free and eco friendly too – so long as they’re all nearby. Handy.
But the reliance on magnets also means that it could mess with things such as flash memory or credit cards if they too get caught in the vicinity. We’ll still have to wait a few years before this could become a feasible reality, but at least Apple has got the idea down “just in case”.
This blog has been posted by TGS.
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