I moved my work desk about six feet on Friday - there are some new people starting, and it makes more sense with the new layout, especially since I'm not part of this company.
(I'm working at an office in Los Angeles, doing work for a company in San Francisco, actually employed by a temp agency based in Pennsylvania). Yes, my life is a series of odd situations.
As I moved all my computer components (I run 4 PCs at the same desk), I was once again dismayed by the quantity of cords and cables necessary to run modern technology.
I thought this was the wondrous 21st Century, the wireless age, the freakin future, already!
I've been toying with an idea for a few years now. For patients with artificial hearts, the power is transmitted through the skin, without wires, using an external and internal coil - this is called transcutaneous energy transmission when used in the body.
A magnetic field between the two coils transmits the electricity. Similar to the gaps between nerve connectors (sans the chemical component).
There are also versions of magnetic coil transmission with everyday appliances, like electric toothbrushes and shavers - anything that might get wet and therefore unfriendly to open electrical contacts.
We can and do beam electricity through skin and plastic. Why don't we have PowerDesks? The desk would have numerous transmitting coils throughout the desk top. The base of the computer monitor, speakers, mouse, etc would have receiving coils.
No cables.
At most, you plug one thing - the desk - into the wall or floor, and arrange your desk as you like. Often, we have to arrange appliances on a desk so the cords will reach. No longer a problem.
There are still the data lines for the monitor, mouse, keyboard, and etc. Wireless mice and keyboards are already prevalent, and monitors may already exist.
It makes sense, however, that if we can transmit electricity itself to the appliances via these coils, data should be possible as well. A datastream is just a series of codified pulses. This means no data lines for any of your desk appliances, including the phone.
This technology could also be applied to entertainment centers. I don't know about the rest of you, but I have two power strips plugged in behind mine, with a frightening tangle of electrical and a/v wires just begging for the slightest spark to kill us in the night.
The use of electricity transmitting coils as a viable technology would require appliances designed with this power source in mind. Like any new technology, it could take a good ten years before manufacturers and consumers catch up. There would be the inevitable period of adaptors and connectors. A portable power mat, instead of built-in to the desk top.
My one concern with this technology is that we might be bathed in strong magnetic fields even more so than we are now. Wouldn't this be a health risk?
The fact that it's used in patients with artificial hearts would make me think it's not a problem... But the dose in artficial hearts would be very small, unlike the dose from a power-transmitting desk top.
Even if the artifical heart dose were a problem, these people are close to death anyway, and the side effects of the magnetic field are probably less heinous than an infection (from using power cables through the skin).
I suppose you'd have to build a prototype desk and appliances, then test how much leakage there was to the environment, and what effect it would have.
(I'm working at an office in Los Angeles, doing work for a company in San Francisco, actually employed by a temp agency based in Pennsylvania). Yes, my life is a series of odd situations.
As I moved all my computer components (I run 4 PCs at the same desk), I was once again dismayed by the quantity of cords and cables necessary to run modern technology.
I thought this was the wondrous 21st Century, the wireless age, the freakin future, already!
I've been toying with an idea for a few years now. For patients with artificial hearts, the power is transmitted through the skin, without wires, using an external and internal coil - this is called transcutaneous energy transmission when used in the body.
A magnetic field between the two coils transmits the electricity. Similar to the gaps between nerve connectors (sans the chemical component).
There are also versions of magnetic coil transmission with everyday appliances, like electric toothbrushes and shavers - anything that might get wet and therefore unfriendly to open electrical contacts.
We can and do beam electricity through skin and plastic. Why don't we have PowerDesks? The desk would have numerous transmitting coils throughout the desk top. The base of the computer monitor, speakers, mouse, etc would have receiving coils.
No cables.
At most, you plug one thing - the desk - into the wall or floor, and arrange your desk as you like. Often, we have to arrange appliances on a desk so the cords will reach. No longer a problem.
There are still the data lines for the monitor, mouse, keyboard, and etc. Wireless mice and keyboards are already prevalent, and monitors may already exist.
It makes sense, however, that if we can transmit electricity itself to the appliances via these coils, data should be possible as well. A datastream is just a series of codified pulses. This means no data lines for any of your desk appliances, including the phone.
This technology could also be applied to entertainment centers. I don't know about the rest of you, but I have two power strips plugged in behind mine, with a frightening tangle of electrical and a/v wires just begging for the slightest spark to kill us in the night.
The use of electricity transmitting coils as a viable technology would require appliances designed with this power source in mind. Like any new technology, it could take a good ten years before manufacturers and consumers catch up. There would be the inevitable period of adaptors and connectors. A portable power mat, instead of built-in to the desk top.
My one concern with this technology is that we might be bathed in strong magnetic fields even more so than we are now. Wouldn't this be a health risk?
The fact that it's used in patients with artificial hearts would make me think it's not a problem... But the dose in artficial hearts would be very small, unlike the dose from a power-transmitting desk top.
Even if the artifical heart dose were a problem, these people are close to death anyway, and the side effects of the magnetic field are probably less heinous than an infection (from using power cables through the skin).
I suppose you'd have to build a prototype desk and appliances, then test how much leakage there was to the environment, and what effect it would have.
Is the electonic age's version of having your nuts in a vice?
ReplyDeleteWould you have to worry about arm being pinned to the tabletop by your watch?
ReplyDeleteAnd what about things like VCR tape, that are sensitive to megnetic fields?
Most people use DVDs and DVR now, but still.
We're actually exposed to EM fields all the time, and I could be wrong, but I heard that there's no actual proof that EM fields have a negative effect on the human body.
ReplyDeleteI do have to echo Litany though. I once put a faulty speaker on top of my monitor. It wasn't shielded properly and managed to completely screw up my monitor.
I'm also pretty sure that an EM field powerful enough to run a computer, monitor, printer, etc...would not do very nice things to your hard drive as well.
It has a lot of potential, but I think it would only work if everything electrical on the desk was specially shielded.