"That to me is the most striking part about it – transmitting 60 watts at 75 percent efficiency over several feet," Intel's chief technology officer, Justin Rattner, said in an interview. "The power pack for your laptop isn't that efficient... it's one of those things that's almost too good to be true."
Wireless transmission of electricity makes use of some basic physics – electric coils that resonate at the same frequency can transmit energy to each other at a distance.
But this technology has a long way to evolve before it becomes a commercial product. In both the MIT and the Intel work, researchers used charging coils far too large for wide-scale use.
Eventually, a homeowner could attach a large transmitter to a wall – or even bury it inside the wall – and plant smaller receivers inside nearby tables and chairs and other pieces of furniture, creating the ultimate in recharging convenience.