RCA AirPower

Ok, so we’re not talking about powering light bulbs, TV’s,  or anything substantial, but the idea is still almost as cool as beaming power from space.  It seems that the geniuses at RCA have refined a technique by which the minute amounts of energy carried by a 2.4GHz WiFi signal can be harnessed and stored to charge the growing number of wireless consumer electronics devices we all use every day.  Their initial product, dubbed the AirPower charger, passively charges its own internal battery when in the presence of a WiFi network – presumably using RF resonance techniques.  The trickle of electricity generated is used to continuously charge the internal battery over 5-6 hours of WiFi exposure.  When the internal AirPower battery is charged, other portable electronic devices can tap into its stored energy via a USB charging cable, thus topping off their own batteries in approximately the same amount of time as it would have taken via traditional re-charging methods (e.g. an AC adapter).

While technical details about the AirPower charger remain sparse, RCA did demonstrate an initial version of the device at CES which they expected would cost around $40.  Let’s just hope these don’t become too popular since placing one between your laptop and the WiFi transmitter will undoubtedly result in lower wireless throughput.