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Prototype Microsoft system uses indoor light to wirelessly charge phones

• http://www.gizmag.com, By Ben Coxworth

According to Yunxin Liu, Zhen Qin and Chunshui Zhao, pads still require users to consciously place their phone in a specific spot, for the express purpose of charging. Instead, they envision a system in which users just toss their phone onto a table, where it's automatically charged using a beam of light. They've already built a working prototype of the system, which is known as AutoCharge.

Here's how the technology works ...

Using an overhead camera (a Kinect, in the case of the current prototype) and object recognition software, AutoCharge continuously scans the table top, looking for smartphone-shaped objects. When it detects one – which it does in less than one second – it shines a beam of focused light onto it. Both the camera and the light can rotate, in order to image and illuminate the target from an optimum angle.

A photovoltaic panel on that phone (which could be a transparent Wysips film) subsequently generates electricity from that light, charging the phone's battery. The researchers said that in tests of the prototype using a phone-sized PV panel, it was found to charge phones approximately as fast as some wired chargers.


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