An interesting list of jobs. Looks like they are going to track the uBeams's position optically. Something like flashing IR led that you must not cover up. Boring! I thought they may be doing it somehow with ultrasonics with a phased array on the transmitter.
IIRC, it went through various incarnations, from no position tech, to "oops, performance is going to suck unless we really beamform and steer this thing", through various techs that didn't work well enough, so, meh try again with some sort of optical tracking. Because, you know, it just
has to be a solvable problem, Meredith has deemed it so.
So this thing is going to have custom ASICs both ends, a camera to track the receiver, I guess a two axis motorized rotator on the transmitter, who knows what to align the receiver, custom ultrasonic transducers both ends, a powerful ultrasonic amplifier on the transmitter, and a really really pathetic data-over-ultrasound capability.
Yep, but it uses beam forming to steer the ultrasonics.
All this bleeding edge tech to replace a $5 Qi charging pad, and at probably 1/50th the efficiency, yeah, winning idea
How much is this monster going to cost? I spend about $10 a year on microUSB charging cables, so I hope it will be cheaper then that.
You don't have to worry about it, because it will never make it to market
I was thinking that if they are smart, they will use the money to develop useful ultrasonic detection/imaging technology so at least they have something. It doesn't sound like they will end up with any useful technology at all. Perhaps the transducers may have other uses, but it looks like they are still looking for transducer designers. I thought that was the heart of their invention.
The people that do/did work there are very smart, but word is that Meredith doesn't want to hear anything but her own fairytale.