The idea is interesting, but her TED talk really pissed me off. Her arrogance and attitude towards people of greater education (in the area she is working in) and experience is revolting.
Lately we've seen a bunch of "great ideas" from these "ingenious innovators" and while you must encourage innovation, many of these innovators really forget about the practical implications of their ideas. It's not that the idea of wireless power transmission is intrinsically bad. Of course not; that would be terrific. But you can't ignore the laws of physics, no matter how much hype you get from the media or how big you dream.
And so I can't completely blame her as it seems the media got her on-board the hype train, which is probably partly the reason she thinks her idea is so brilliant. (Gee if the media thinks my idea is awesome, then it must be great!)
Mind you I am merely a 19 year old EE student, with only a summer's worth of internship experience, but I still find the TED talk to be very distasteful. Her lack of trust in those who have actual knowledge of the technologies she is experimenting with just proves her arrogance. The engineers she talked to didn't want to shut down her idea because she is a non-engineer, but they knew the practical roadblocks in her way. Why does she speak of engineers and physicists with such negativity? Who created the transistor? The IC? For the most part everything we enjoy and love today is a product of innovators who, YES, weren't afraid to think outside the box, but were also very knowledgeable in the field they were working in.
So to put down similar people and accuse them of being robotic, systematic, or linear is just asinine. Want to see real innovators? Step inside an Intel R&D lab. Or go to a Quantenna lab where you'll find a wise graybeard working on the RF front end for the latest 802.11 standard. Or NASA. Or...well you get it! Those are the guys (and girls) doing the real dirty work that makes real progress happen...not this imaginary fluff.
I could go on for days...but this attitude is really appalling.