Category Archives: Newsworthy

How to Avoid Cable Damage from Oil

Electrical cables are routinely exposed to several kinds of damaging chemicals in the environments they pass through. However, the most damaging of them all is chemical exposure to oil. Many industries and infrastructure settings use oil as a lubricant or as coolants. Such oils react with the polymers used in the cable insulation and jacketing to inflict molecular damage.

If this is ignored, oil can severely damage cables. This ultimately results in failure of the cable, system downtime and replacement expenses. With advanced production facilities such as in automotive assembly, requirements of better performance characteristics in renewable energy and regulatory changes, more people are now aware of oil damage to cables.

Fortunately, better cable manufacturing technology is now allowing cables to resist the effects of lubricating and cooling oils. However, it is necessary to know how oil degrades cables, how oil exposure problems can be diagnosed and how cables can be selected so that they resist oils over the long haul.

Insulation and jackets of cables are typically made of polymer compounds. Although they may have the same family name, not all these polymers show the same physical properties, including oil resistance. For example, some PVC compounds may show better oil resistance, while others have a higher degree of flame resistance. Manufacturers change the PVC formulation according to the properties and applications desired.

For example, addition of certain flame-retardants, stabilizers and filters allow PVC to exhibit enhanced characteristics of this type. However, improving or enhancing one characteristic usually comes at the cost of other performance traits being affected or being completely lost.

That explains why not all wire and cable insulations show equal performance with oil resistance in particular. The chemical, mechanical, environmental and electrical attributes vary depending on the individual compound formulations. To help promote resistance to fatigue and increased flexibility, most insulating compounds have a specific amount of plasticizers added to their individual formulations. When such compounds are exposed to processing oils for coolant or lubrication, the plasticizer diffuses from the compound or the material absorbs the oil.

With the plasticizer diffusing out of the compound, the oil causes insulation hardening, resulting in loss of flexibility and elongation properties. If oil is absorbed, the insulation swells and softens resulting in degradation of tensile properties.

In short, oil causes the insulating compound to lose its primary role virtually as an effective insulator. This creates a hazardous situation not only to the functioning of the industrial machinery to which it is connected, but possibly also to human life. Ultimately, this can result in expensive downtimes, expensive repairs and in the worst cases, replacement of the entire machinery.

Testing can help determine how a cable will react in environments containing industrial oil. UL has standardized these tests and they are commonly known as Oil Res I and Oil Res II tests. In these tests, cable samples are continuously immersed in IRM 902 Oil at elevated temperatures for specified periods. The mechanical properties of the cable samples are observed for physical damage caused by the exposure to oil. The latest UL standard for these tests is AWM Style 21098.

The Human Brain Project: Is the Electronic Brain Coming?

The human brain has always been a thing of extreme curiosity to the students of anatomy. In fact, Einstein’s brain was preserved for future study immediately after his death. Innumerable studies have been done on this part of the human anatomy, yet, we know very little about how its complete range of functions. In the quest to know more about the human brain, resources are being put together for a simulation to study how the brain functions. The HBP or Human Brain Project of the European Union has a primary directive – an artificial brain by 2023. They recently held their annual HBP Summit in Germany, at the University of Heidelberg.

The European Commission Future and Emerging Technologies fund one of its flagship programs, the Human Brain Project. The 10-year-long project has a funding of nearly US$1.3 billion. Initially, HBP aims to simulate the entire human brain functionality on supercomputers, and then replicate the functionality on a special hardware emulator. They expect to be able to reproduce the functions of the brain so accurately as to allow trying out diseases and their cures on the emulator. The long-term objective of the project is to build an artificial brain inexpensive enough to outperform traditional supercomputers of the von Neumann type at a fraction of the cost.

At the end of the first year, all pieces have been assembled. According to the report, all personnel are hired, laboratories engaged throughout the region, and the ICT or Information and Communication Technology set up in place. This arrangement will allow the researchers with their 100+ corporate and academic partners in 20+ countries to collaborate effectively to share data. The projects already running include reconstructing the functioning of the brain at different biological scales along with development of computing systems to mimic the functioning of the brain.

According to the agenda for the ramp-up phase or the first two and a half years, HBP will gather as much strategic data about brain functioning as is known. The project will also develop theoretical frameworks to fit that data. They will also develop the infrastructure necessary for six ICT platforms during the next operational phase to start from 2017.

Supercomputers or high-performance computing will serve all platform builders for the six ICT platforms. These will consist of: the Neurorobotics platform for supporting testing of the brain models and simulations in virtual environments; the Neuromorphic computing platform for mimicking the various functions of the brain; the Medical Informatics platform for cataloging the diseases of the brain; the Brain Simulation platform to assemble the simulation algorithms of different brain components; and the main Neuroinformatics data repository for housing the Brain Atlas.

The first year of the project has some progress highlights. These include: a brain simulation technique for the cerebellum, repurposed from the one originally working successfully for the neocortex; a virtual room for the neurorobotics prototype, where researchers can study virtual bodies with brain models for behavior and cognitive abilities; an HPC or high performance computer successfully retrofitted for interactive-supercomputing – essential for testing brain models; and demonstrations of several new neuromorphic chips and testing them to solve modern computing challenges that only humans can perform today.

Pi Lite: Bright White LED Display with the Raspberry Pi

If you did not know, you can run many LEDs with the tiny, credit card sized single board computer popular as the RBPi or Raspberry Pi. Among the many accessories made for the RBPi using LEDs, Ciseco makes one that is very interesting and useful. This is a display panel using bright white LEDs and aptly named the Pi Lite. You can use the series of white LEDs on the Pi Lite as a scrolling marquee for a Twitter feed, for displaying real-time weather information or stock quotes. You can use it to display static information such as time or functional information such as bar graphs, or other dashboard type applications such as VU meters. On the other hand, you could even play such games as Pong. Pi Lite is strong enough to view in direct sunlight.

Pi Lite is completely self-contained and does not require any soldering. You can get Pi Lite in two colors – white and red. For operation, simply connect Pi Lite to the GPIO pins of the RBPi, and you are set. GitHub has several open-source projects that you can download or you could do your own programming using Python code.

If you are just starting out with the RBPi, Pi Lite is an exciting way to let RBPi do some physical work and generate some fun. The large LED matrix display is easy to plug in and add-on. Since no soldering or any other special skills are needed, anyone can simply start using the Pi Lite for their project.

All the 126 LEDs on the Pi Lite are in the form of a 14×9 matrix, with an ATMega328p processor controlling them. This mixes the highly popular LOL or Lots of LEDs shield of Arduino with the world of RBPi. The Pi Lite communicates with the RBPi via the standard serial communication protocol at 9600bps. That makes it a simple affair to send graphics and text to the LED matrix. With the ATMega processor driving the 126 LEDs, the RBPi processor and its GPIOs remain free for other functions.

The Pi Lite offers several advantages. You can read your emails or tweets from a distance in real time. The firmware being open-source, you can add extra functions as you like. You can achieve multiple functions by sending simple text strings – scroll the text, VU meter, bar graph and or graphics. You can use the well tried, tested and supported LOL shield by Jimmy Rogers. The serial interface makes Pi Lite useful for connecting to any TTL micro radio or PC interface – you can use the popular FTDI cable.

The Pi Lite uses a high quality gold plated PCB. No extra power supply is required, as Pi Lite draws only 49mA maximum at 5VDC, so the RBPi supply can power it. With preloaded software, you can use it out of the box and display variable speed scrolling text, 14 vertical bars as a bar graph, two horizontal bars as VU meter, frame buffer for animation and graphics, or turn on or off individual pixels.

To make a bigger display, you can link up additional Pi Lites with the I2C bus. Each Pi Lite measures 85x55x13.7mm.

Computers Can Beat Humans in Image Recognition

Every day, computers are getting smarter. So far, it is not clear whether the smartness is moving towards something as depicted in the Terminator movies, but computers are beating humans in chess, poker and Jeopardy. The next hurdle that computers have crossed is image recognition. Microsoft claims to have programmed a computer that can beat humans at recognizing images.

Although the final competition is going to be held on December 17, 2015, already there are claims that computers are better than humans are in visual recognition. The ImageNet Large Scale Visual Recognition Challenge will do judging for the final competition. The first claim about computers beating humans came from Microsoft. They claimed that while humans made 5.1% errors in recognizing images, computers failed only in 4.94% cases. After 5 days of Microsoft announcing their feat, Google announced that they have bettered the Microsoft claim by 0.04%. That means the competition is getting fiercer every day.

Since 2010, more than 50 institutions take part every year in the competition for image recognition. ImageNet runs this competition and they have hundreds of object categories and several millions of example images. So far, humans have scored the most, but this year a computer is expected to take the crown. Typically, contestants use the latest deep learning algorithms. Derived from different types of artificial neural networks, these deep learning algorithms mimic the way the human brain works to a varying degree.

Although no contestant actually offers their exact code, they provide papers that freely describe their algorithm in great detail – similar to the spirit of open source – explaining the advantages of their algorithm and why it is expected to work so well. As Microsoft explains in their paper, they are using deep CNNs or convolutional neural networks that have 30 weight layers. Google have revealed that they are using batch normalization techniques, and these do not allow neurons to saturate during initialization.

Usually, the conventional way of using neural units involves hand designing them and fixing while training. However, Microsoft has deviated from this path and made the neural units smarter. They have done this by making their form more flexible in nature. According to the principal researcher at the Visual Computing Group of Microsoft Research, Asia, each neural unit undergoes a particular form of end-to-end training that imparts the learning. The introduction of smarter units improves the model considerably.

However, the reason for the ability of current neural networks being able to beat human experts lies in the algorithm of Microsoft’s Deep Learning. This algorithm usually initializes and trains on 1.2 million training images and verifies its learning on 50-thousand validation images. For the final application of its learning, Deep Learning uses 100-thousand test images from the main image database. However, Microsoft did not actually follow this standard route.

As training of very deep neural networks is rather difficult, Microsoft used a robust initialization method. As with other contestants, Microsoft did buy Nvidia’s access to their arrays of graphic processing units. However, they also bought and configured their own supercomputer. They simulated parametric rectified linear neural units and that helped them finally to beat the human experts for image classification.

pluripotent stem cells give this Chip a Living Beating Heart

In 2010, Shinya Yamanaka, the winner of the Kyoto Prize, had discovered pluripotent stem cells. At the University of Berkeley, bioengineers used these stem cells to create living, beating hearts on-a-chip. Their aim is to reproduce organs of the human body on-a-chip and then interconnect them with channels carrying micro-fluidics, ultimately creating a complete human being on-a-wafer.

According to Professor Kevin Healy, bioengineers have mastered the art of deriving almost any type of human tissue for skin stem cells. Yamanaka was the discoverer of this process. Healy wants to use this in drug screening applications, since that can be done without actually testing on animals. Ultimately, by generating organs-on-a-chip using the stem cells of the patient would be beneficial as this could help with study of genetic diseases as well.

At present, the heart on-a-chip beats each time it pumps blood through micro-fluidic veins within its polymer and silicone chamber. By connecting the various organs via micro-fluidic channels that carry natural biological fluids and blood between them, bioengineers plan to study the interaction of drugs among the various organs.

For example, by solving a heart problem with a drug, the liver might start retaining toxins. It would be much better to find this out beforehand prior to administering the drug to the patient.

The UC Berkeley developed heart-on-a-chip uses human heart tissues that have been derived from adult stem cells. Researchers hope someday to replace the animal models currently used for drug safety testing. However, Professor Healy clarified that creating living robots by the process was not their mission. Their funding comes from the Tissue Chip for Drug Screening Initiative of the National Institute of Health. This being an interagency collaboration aimed specifically at developing 3D human tissue chips solely for drug screening.

Nonetheless, this technology of creating organs-on-a-chip and interconnecting them via micro-fluidic channels, might someday lay the foundation for making robot-like creatures. For example, a single 4-inch wafer can house about 24 artificial heart chips.

However, making robot-like creatures requires sensors and actuators. Although sensors are easier, actuators pose more problems. According to Professor Healy, MIT is working on developing artificial muscles to serve as actuators.

Professor Healy along with his colleagues has created an inch-long artificial heart, which is housed in silicone, and contains real cardiac muscle cells. Once the heart cells are inserted within the device, it takes about 24 hours for the cells to begin spontaneously beating at the normal rate of 55-80 times per minute. Simultaneously, the heart cells pump blood through the micro-fluidics channels. Administering drugs known to slowdown or speed up the heart’s frequency, causes the artificial heart to respond normally.

Currently, the micro-fluidics channels carry only nutrients. However, the same channels might someday be used to carry away waste products as well. Professor Healy’s lab has managed to keep the cells viable over several weeks. They plan to put hundreds of organs-on-a-chip and spread them across a wafer, interconnecting them all with micro-fluidics channels carrying blood and other essential bodily fluids. Very soon, using animals for drug screening would end.

LED Light Guides Equal OLED Performance

The visual impact of OLED panels is hard to resist. Their luminosity is seductively stylish and sleek. Fashion-forward lighting designers prefer the eerily-even silky glow of the OLEDs, even though these are more expensive, have a short lifetime and can be damaged more easily than other light emitting panels. Now GLT or Global Lighting Technologies, with their edge-lit LED-based light guide technology, is about to turn the tables on OLEDs.

The latest product from GLT, a 4×4 inch LED-based light guide, demonstrates this technology specifically. Compared to an OLED panel, the GLT light guide has better durability, higher efficiency, longer life and is cheaper as well.

Applications that would normally use an OLED panel, can easily use the LED-based 4×4 inch square GLT light guide as a more durable and affordable solution. GLT has designed these light guides for use in general lighting applications and they offer diffused light output very similar to that from OLEDs, but at a much lower cost.

Offering enhanced light extraction, the light guide is very thin – only 3.5 mm. The panel itself measures only 2 mm, considerably thinner than products GLT made earlier. When in use, industry standard LEDs will typically light it up from the edges, with only a small frame concealing the LEDs. The current product gives out 250 lumens when fully powered, while the efficiency per watt is over 115 lumens.

GLT produces several types of molded light guides. All the products, including the new 4×4 backlights, are made using an efficient light extraction technology. A high-precision micro-molding process impresses optical features within the light guide. By arranging the features to provide a unique transition area, light spreads uniformly and precisely over each point across the panel. GLT has several standard patterns that they mold into the light guides. They can customize each pattern and meet any application virtually.

GLT develops their light guides in very thin packages and designs mechanical holding features into the backlights. That allows the host application to carry the entire display assembly and if that is not possible, use chip-on-flex or chip-on-glass type of assembly. That helps to reduce the parts count and material and assembly costs.

According to GTL, their light extraction technology delivers better optical performance than that offered by V-groove or stamped, chemical or laser etching and printing processes. Additionally, their process is more repeatable. After having demonstrated their light diffusion technology for a few years, GTL has now incorporated it into some of its high-end lighting products.

With their light diffusion technology, GLT offers a large variety of design options to the luminaire designers. Some of these designs can already be seen in the round 12-inch diameter pendant light. This clever design achieves results remarkably like an OLED. It uses a light guide incorporating LEDs along its inner circumference and they emit light in multiple directions.

Panasonic uses light guides from GLT in commercially available fixtures meant for mounting on ceilings. In the fixture, multiple light guides create discrete distribution patterns. These include spot lighting, downward flood lighting and upward ambient lighting within the room.

Christmas tree Lights with the Raspberry Pi

Although Christmas is still a good four months away, you can always prepare for it in advance. The project uses a tiny single board computer known as the RBPi or Raspberry Pi, but you will need some time to collect other material for the project. You will also need time to iron out software bugs, especially if you are a newcomer to the RBPi and Python programming. Additionally, although the project is meant for Christmas, you can as well use it for decorating any other occasion.

The RBPi in the project drives eight AC outlets connected to sets of light. An RGB LED star adds a dynamic range to the light show with its 25-step programming mode. Another advantage the RBPi offers is its audio out can drive the lights in time with music. With a Wi-Fi connection, you can work on the software from a remote location.

The basic ingredients you require for this project are: an RBPi, any model; an SD card containing the Occidentalis operating system; a USB Wi-Fi adapter; and an eight-channel 5V SSR Module Board. You may also use electro-mechanical relays in place of SSRs, but they will produce noticeably audible clicking sounds when switching, while SSRs are noiseless. If you use the SainSmart SSR module board, each of the eight SSRs is rated up to 2A, which will adequately power a string of lights.

Apart from the basic ingredients, you will also require a bunch of extra items: some jumper wires, JST SM Plug and receptacles; four 8ft pieces of wire; eight extension cords, two power distribution blocks; a power strip; suitable enclosure; and speakers. You will also need a few power supplies: for driving the RBPi and the LEDs – 5V, 3A or greater; and for driving the SSR module – 5V, 1A or greater.

For the star, you can use 12mm or suitable RGB LED strands. With the Adafruit WS2801 chip, the RBPi only has to pulse the LED strand once rather than pulse it continuously to keep the LEDs lit up.

It is advisable to test the RBPi and associated components before connecting the wiring. Do this before setting up everything within the enclosure and you have the advantage of easy troubleshooting. Connect the RBPi to a monitor and keyboard, so you can set the system configuration to start software development.

As the default RBPi installation does not have the necessary libraries for driving the WS2801 LEDs, it is necessary to use the Occidentalis operating system from Adafruit. Follow the steps outlined here for configuring the RBPi to get it working as required. Use GPIO 0-7 on the RBPi for driving the SSR module.

As the RBPi drives the GPIO output high, the SSR connected to that pin switches on. This allows the LED associated with the SSR to light up. Write a simple test program to cycle through all the GPIO pins, setting them high for two seconds each.
After testing for proper functioning, connect the lights to respective SSRs through extension cords, using power distribution blocks to keep the wiring neat. Use cheap night-lights to test the animation program first, since this will reduce your eyestrain.

Flexible Aluminum Battery for Smartphones

Would you be interested in a battery that takes only a second to charge up and is flexible enough to wrap around your smartphone? While manufacturers would be more interested in the flexibility feature, most users will welcome the quick charging time. At Stanford University, researchers claim to have developed such a battery from cheap, plentiful materials. It is flexible and charges up very fast as well.

The new aluminum battery has a foil anode made of flexible aluminum, a cathode of graphite foam and an electrolyte of liquid salt. Researchers at the Stanford University say they discovered this aluminum and graphite battery quite by accident, but have worked on their discovery to improve its performance, especially the graphite cathode part.

Compared to a lithium-ion battery, the aluminum battery with its porous graphite cathode offers only one-third the capacity at a terminal voltage of 2.5V. Therefore, two aluminum batteries must be used in series to power most devices requiring 5V. However, the aluminum battery has a property that gives it an edge over its lithium-ion rival – a very high Coulombic efficiency of above 95%. Researchers are currently engaged in optimizing the capacity and other desirable qualities to match or surpass those of lithium-ion batteries.

The aluminum battery uses a liquid electrolyte, making it cheap and nonflammable. This is an ionic liquid made by mixing two solid precursors – EMIC and AlCl3, where EMIC stands for 1-ethyl-3-methyl-imidazolium chloride and AlCl3 is aluminum chloride. While both compounds are individually solid, mixing them significantly lowers the melting point of the mixture so that it remains a liquid at room temperatures. The liquid electrolyte and the porous graphite electrode contribute to the super-fast recharging time, and the amount of current the aluminum battery can deliver.

The porous graphite foam cathode presents a large surface area, which is the governing factor for accessing the electrolyte. While charging, the large surface area presents a low energy barrier to the process of intercalation. The team expects the flexibility of the battery will be useful to manufacturers making flexible smartphones in the future.

The main attraction of the aluminum battery as compared to the lithium-ion batteries currently available is its capability of fast recharge. In fact, even the prototype reached 7.5 times the rate of charging of a commercial lithium-ion battery. Typically, lithium-ion batteries loose significant capacity after they have reached about 1000 recharge cycles. In comparison, an aluminum battery is capable of withstanding more than 7500 charges without any loss of capacity.

That makes the aluminum battery suitable for large installations such as storing solar energy during the day for release at night on the grid. These batteries are a perfect replacement for the lithium-ion batteries that occasionally burst into flames and for alkaline batteries that are bad for the environment. According to the researchers, even if someone were to drill through an aluminum battery, it will not catch fire.

At present, the only drawback is the terminal voltage. However, the researchers are optimistic that with a better cathode material, the aluminum battery can be made into a more powerful commercial battery.

Pico USB Scope for the Raspberry Pi

According to Pico Technology, the beta release of its drivers for the PicoScope oscilloscopes, useful for running on ARM-based single board computers, is available. That includes development systems such as the BeagleBone Black and the ever-popular Raspberry Pi, also known as the RBPi. For the RBPi, the drivers are a specialized armhf build under the control of its Raspbian OS. Pico Technology is offering this Beta release with some caveats.

Although the developers claim to have taken care of ensuring implementation of almost all the driver features, they may not work in all cases. The developers mention that the recommended systems requirement for the drivers specifies resources that most embedded systems will not be able to fulfill entirely. That means when the system is busy, the driver may not have enough resources for processing the data, which may result in the device being dropped or the application to hang. They also expect power surges, fuse blowing and port damage and to guard against this, they suggest powering the system through a separate USB hub.

All this makes it sound like the drivers are more suitable for advanced do-it-yourself people. It also suggests that the drivers are useful for working on other platforms, but Pico may not yet be in a position to offer support for these implementations. At present Pico is focusing their support for only two platforms – the RBPi and the BeagleBone Black.

The Pico USB Scope has advanced display software that assigns almost all the display area to the waveform. Therefore, the user is able to see the maximum amount of data at a time. Additionally, this makes the viewing area much larger and of a higher resolution than that available on a traditional bench top oscilloscope.

The large display area also makes it easier to create a customizable split-screen display for viewing multiple channels or for projecting different views of the same signal simultaneously. The software is capable of displaying both oscilloscope output and spectrum analyzer traces at the same time. Moreover, the software can flexibly control each waveform individually for zoom, pan and other filter settings.

Oscilloscopes frequently require using an analog or DC offset. Most PicoScope Oscilloscopes offer this valuable feature. With DC offset, you can get back the vertical resolution, which is usually lost while measuring small signals. In practice, an analog offset typically adds a DC voltage to the input signal. This is useful if the signal is beyond the range of the ADC of the scope. By adding an offset, the signal is brought back within the range and the display can use a more sensitive range.

For testing purposes, an AWG or arbitrary waveform generator is often required. This generates electrical waveforms that can be either a single-shot or repetitive. With an AWG, you can generate any arbitrarily defined wave shape to inject into a DUT or device under test for analysis by the PicoScope. The progress of the signal through the DUT confirms its proper operation and enables pinpointing any fault inside.

Deep-memory versions of the PicoScope oscilloscopes offer waveform-buffering sizes up to 2 gigasamples, which is much larger than that offered by competing scopes of traditional bench top or PC-based design. A hardware acceleration technique ensures the PicoScope does not slow down while using deep memory and displaying at full speed.

Light up for Wireless Charging

Wi-Charge, a wireless charging company from Israel, has demonstrated a light-based charger at the Mobile World Congress. Along with other few existing wireless charging methods, the Wi-Charge method of charging provides an alternative to support background charging across longer distances compared to those offered by existing rivals. Wi-Charge develops receivers and transmitters that utilize laser light for charging a wide range of devices. The transmitters are typically shaped to fit into wall or light bulb sockets and provide a constant charge. Incidentally, these devices do not operate with infrared light as do some other makes of chargers, and therefore, do not produce unsafe radiation.

The charging system developed by Wi-Charge is called the distributed resonator. It consists of a high-power light source focused with two retro reflective mirrors, very similar to reflectors typically used on a bicycle. One of the mirrors focuses the laser transmitter and the other has a photovoltaic cell at its focal point at the receiving end. This way, Wi-Charge has a closed loop system that prevents the ultra-high energy to stray and enter the human body.

The distributed resonator charging device transmitter supports multiple devices. The total number of charging devices ultimately depends on the battery size being charged. The smart home device, which Wi-Charge will release first in the market, will come with a receiver module capable of charging up to 2W with a plug-in transmitter capable of covering a room 15-foot long.

Another model, meant for charging mobile devices, measures 17x17mm and has a transmitter capable of delivering 10W. The model has two receivers capable of charging devices at 5W each. Wi-Charge demonstrated this by charging a Samsung Galaxy S4 at the end of a 10-foot long table capable of rotating up to 80-degrees.

The basic idea behind the Wi-Charge wireless chargers is to keep devices always charged, never allowing them to drain or become empty. For this, their chargers pump in just enough power required for the device to be normally used pus a little extra.

The company has developed other form factors as well. One of their chargers is shaped like a dongle that attaches to a speaker in a phone case with an embedded receiver. Ultimately, the company plans to integrate their transmitters inside smart light bulbs.

Their plan is to integrate the receiver within the device being charged. According to their CEO, the transmitter could be embedded in the front part of the phone or even go under the glass of the screen. As the company is not competing to provide the fastest charging method, users can expect their empty devices to charge up completely within 2-3 hours.

At present, coil-based chargers dominate the wireless charging arena. That makes it a challenging proposition for Wi-Charge to enter the market. Currently, Wi-Charge is working to increase the charging distance of its transmitters to 30 feet, while reducing their size to 10x10mm.

While the consortia of inductive chargers fight each other for dominance, Wi-Charge is confident the very weak value proposition of the inductive chargers will allow their long-range power to be considered superior. Accordingly, Wi-Charge is hoping to partner with larger OEMs to drop the prices of their devices by proliferation.