Turn radio waves into power!

RF power harvesting was shown at CES this year by several companies.  What is RP power harvesting?  It is the act of setting up an antenna pointing it at a radio tower of some sort and sucking electricity right out of the air!  Cool!  Intel researchers in Seattle did the little experiment above and were able to power a digital thermometer (about the equivelant of a AAA) off of electricity they pulled straight from the air with their antenna pointed toward a TV tower.  You may mock the digital thermometer experiment and label this technology is impractical or worthless because it can only power small devices.  Let me remind you this technology is a newborn and has tons of potential.

While there is potential and hope for this technology, don’t sever your ties to the utility comanies just yet.  Due to wattage issues and power loss over longer distances everything connected to the power harvester has to be really close.  Give it some time.  Imagine, an antenna in your yard powering your whole house.  Or go bigger, a dish at the corner of the neighboorhood powering the entire town!

If you want to dig deeper into the full *nerd alert* details, Tech Online has the full rundown via PDF.  Enjoy

Source:  Crunchgear, GizMag, Tech Online