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Just shy of its 10th birthday and with between $40 and $48 million of investment (estimated), it appears uBeam (recently Sonic Energy ) has ...

Saturday, April 16, 2016

How did we ever manage?

It seems I missed an update from uBeam earlier this week, as they strongly hint at the future of their technology beyond just mobile phones, just like they do on their website.

This tweet talks about how the first portable computer from 1984 needed to be plugged in to work. How primitive! If only there were a way to wirelessly power it! 

I'm guessing from this that we can expect uBeam to be powering our laptops real soon now. Well, I know there's nothing there that actually says that uBeam will power laptops, but that's the implication, right?

And I'm guessing there's been a major leap in the technology from the statements in Techcrunch last November about supplying 1.5W to a phone sized item, since most laptops are >45W. I'm not sure there's space for a receiver the size of 30 (45/1.5) phones on most laptops. Well, I'd left before then so I have no idea.

Now a cynic might say this is pure PR designed to give the impression of great capability without actually directly claiming it, but I'm sure this isn't just a mistake or incorrect, as a company like uBeam must carefully vet its social media presence for accuracy. If they didn't, the public might get the awful impression they were inaccurate in other statements, and a safety conscious consumer company couldn't ever let that happen.

And finally, I'm just a simple engineer, but wasn't 1984 more than 22 years ago? And I know there is some debate on the matter, but isn't it the Osborne 1 from 1981 that's regarded as the first portable computer? Meh, minor details. I guess I just don't have the vision to see the big picture.

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