Posted Wed Oct 7, 2009 at 08:00 AM PDT by Mike Attebery
Sony is doing away with power cords, enabling true wireless displays.
Saying that a product is wireless always came with an understood asterisk. Your laptop has wireless internet, but still needs to be plugged in after a few hours of use. Your cellular phone has to be charged in most nights, and those wireless surround sound speakers clearly have cords going from them to a base that receives signals wirelessly. The guys at Sony are planning to put an end to all this silliness.
According to a press release put out by Sony Japan late last week, the company now has a working prototype “Wireless Power Supply System” capable of powering a 22” LCD television up to a distance of 50cm. Admittedly, it’s not an incredible amount of distance, and the addition of a repeater only ups the range to 80cm, or just over two and a half feet.
Sony does make it a point to mention that these devices are currently in the experimental phase and aren’t intended for retail release. Distance is a key problem, with the other being wattage. The WPSS can only send 60W at the moment, though with the increasing focus on energy efficient televisions, this may be easier to achieve.
Source: Sony Japan (via Google Translate)
See what people are saying about this story in our forums area, or check out other recent discussions.
The latest news on all things 4K Ultra HD, blu-ray and Gear.