I remember watching Tomorrows World a long time ago, and seeing a piece on mains sockets that didn’t have any sockets. That is to say, you could attach a ‘plug’ to any part of the wall, and electricity would be supplied (I’m guessing through induction coils or something similar?).
Well, the next step beyond no specific sockets on a wall to supply electricity is no connection at all!
According to this article over at the BBC, the system uses resonance to transmit power through the air…
Key
1) Power from the mains supply to a copper antenna
2) Antenna resonates at a frequency of around 10MHz, producing EM(electromagnetic) waves
3) Waves of energy from antenna travel up to 2 metres (6.5ft)
4) Electricity picked up by laptop’s antenna, which must also be resonating at 10MHz. Energy used to re-charge device
5) Energy not transferred to laptop re-absorbed by source antenna. People/other objects not affected as they do not resonate at 10MHz