Stefan Mileschin

The Alliance for Wireless Power (A4WP), a group created through the joint efforts of Qualcomm and Samsung, is getting ready to tackle the growing wireless charging market by introducing its very own standard to compete against the likes of the WPC. This morning the consortium, which claims TI, Powermat and Deutsche Telekom (among several others) as members, not only went into greater detail on its plans for the future but also brought along some prototype pads and embedded furniture to show us.

The A4WP's solution is a "non-radiative magnetic resonance-based wireless power transfer ecosystem" -- in short, it allows your phone, tablet or other A4WP-certified gadget (such as light bulbs, as demonstrated above) to charge from a small distance. What does this mean to you, dear consumer? In short, your device doesn't have to be directly touching the pad in order to receive a charge; instead, you could place your phone on top of a notebook or other obstruction (heck, you could even stack your phone on top of another phone or tablet) and still power up your handset. lt will also allow you to place more than one device on the same pad -- and even more than one device type, so tablets and phones can charge together in harmony despite the fact that they both have different power requirements -- and move them around anywhere on the pad without interrupting the charge. These are key differentiators that make A4WP's option a very tempting one for the general user.

http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/09/h...wp-prototypes/