美国国家公共电台 NPR A Future Of Gadgets Without Power Cords? Not So Fast

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The first wireless 1-charging laptop is on the market. Some say wireless power could transform consumer electronics as much as Wi-Fi or Bluetooth have. From member station WBUR, Asma Khalid explains what this new laptop could mean for our gadgets 2.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Frank (ph), your grande, two-pump classic iced coffee.

ASMA KHALID, BYLINE 3: If pop into Starbucks, you might notice these little circle power mats on the table. They're for charging your cellphone, specifically Samsung phones that came out after 2015. Borui Lee has one of these phones. It's sitting on a power mat. I ask him how often he uses one of these pads, and he starts laughing.

BORUI LEE: Like, zero (laughter).

KHALID: So I just happened to catch you at Starbucks.

LEE: Yes. I come to Starbucks maybe, like, once a month, and then I use it if I have my phone there.

KHALID: He says when he first bought this phone, he was so excited, he went on Amazon and bought a personal wireless charging mat.

LEE: I used it for about three months before going back to my wired charger.

KHALID: He says using a real cord is just so much faster. But a tech company that spun 4 out of MIT about a decade ago says it's developing wireless power that is faster than what you see at Starbucks. The company, WiTricity, has collaborated 5 with Dell on this new laptop. Here's how Morris Kesler explains it. He's the chief technology officer at WiTricity.

MORRIS KESLER: The power source, which is the pad that the laptop sits on, creates a magnetic field that the laptop uses to charge.

KHALID: So you don't have to put your laptop on the mat perfectly 6. You can angle it. But here's the catch. You can't exactly wirelessly 7 charge on the go. The mat has to be plugged in to function.

KESLER: So the idea is that you might have one of these on your desktop 8. You might have one in a conference room where you just put your device down there, and it charges. You might have one at home.

KHALID: But that adds up. Each mat costs $200. The thing is, Kesler says this laptop is just the beginning. He imagines this utopian future where wireless charging is all around us. You drive your electric car into a garage where wireless charging pads are on the floor. Then you open the door to the house, throw your cellphone on the kitchen counter, and it starts charging immediately because wireless tech is built into the countertops. That future of course is still far off, but this laptop could be an important step for the industry, according to David Green. He's an analyst 9 with IHS Markit, and he monitors the wireless power sector 10.

DAVID GREEN: 2016, there were just under 240 million devices worldwide shipped with wireless charging, most of that for mobile phones. But growth can be massive. You know, by 2025, you'll be talking over 2 billion devices a year will ship with wireless charging.

KHALID: But even if a phone or a laptop comes with wireless charging built in, Green says the hardest part is going to be convincing people to give it a try.

GREEN: There's a bit of a chicken and an egg situation - right? - whereby a consumer doesn't really want to know about something convenience-based because they feel what they do right now is fine.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Grande iced caramel macchiato.

KHALID: Back at Starbucks, Borui Lee says even though he usually uses wires, he thinks there's definitely an appetite for a world without them.

LEE: But I'm not sure if table charges is the way to go because with my phone, with my laptop, it's, like, we're so highly mobile. Maybe I want to, you know, carry it on my lap.

KHALID: Lee says what he really wants is portability, essentially 11 the freedom to charge wherever and whenever. But for now, that is still sci-fi. For NPR News, I'm Asma Khalid.