It would make for a better story if I was writing this from my laptop while huddled up at a coffee shop in the next town over because my office was without power, but so far we are fortunate enough to still have lights, AC and most importantly, internet access. But we, and everyone else, may not be so fortunate, as the heatwave will likely continue through the later part of this week. Everyone is trying to cram five days (or more!) of work into a four-day week, which means power consumption won’t drop off just because state officials are asking us to “flex”. We already run our AC at 78, but when it’s 106 outside and your work requires lots of electrical things, flexing can only go so far.
What happens when the lights go out
A lot of our clients have added UPS’s (aka battery backups) to their workstations at the office, and some have even gone so far as to add them to their home office setups as well. Some of you may even have backup generators, power walls and solar panels at home. This will help keep your food from going bad and provide some safety and convenience, but if you are experiencing a full blackout, all that power might not bring your internet back if the local infrastructure is also de-energized. So Cal’s rolling blackouts may not de-energize infrastructure because of how crippling it is for critical services like street traffic, emergency services communications, etc, but depending on what they view as critical, residential internet may end up very low on their list. In an emergency situation, like the recent wildfires, entire areas may be de-energized for safety, or even destroyed, resulting in a complete power and internet blackout. If you are a remote worker, you may want to make plans for how you might work if you have no power or internet where you work, and whether you have the technical capability to work elsewhere. On top of this, it’s probably also very important to know what critical things you use daily that require internet or cellular network access, whether it be staying in touch with loved ones, knowing critical phone or account numbers, or even addresses of safe places or friends’ houses and how to get there. When you sit down and really think about how much we rely on the internet for everything we do – can you function without it? Even if your phone has plenty of battery, is it as useful with no cell signal? Or is it just a very expensive but poor flashlight at that point?
Image by Boyan Chen from Pixabay
Despite the advent of wifi technology which has made staying connected a much more elegant, wire-free affair, we are still tethered by the ever-present power cord. Just about everyone who has traveled with electronics has cursed the forgotten power cord, and probably thrice cursed the tangled knot of cords they did remember to bring. Induction charging has attempted to answer this nagging first-world issue, but adoption of the technology has been slow, and it hasn’t conquered the primary complaint: your devices are tethered not with physical wires this time, but by the need for contact with the induction surface.
Enter surprise start-up Ossia and their product, Cota. Making their debut at the TechCrunch Disrupt13 conference, Ossia founder and physicist Hatem Zeine has developed a technology dubbed “Cota” that can safely power devices wirelessly, at a distance and through walls. The technology is still in the prototype phase and is slowly making its way through the FCC approval process, but Zeine was able to provide a live, on-stage demonstration of an unmodified iPhone being charged wirelessly from the prototype at a distance of several feet. The company’s initial foray into production is aimed at industrial applications where wireless power delivery is a top priority, such as powering remote sensors in a refinery, where electrical sparks are a constant worry. Ossia aims to to have a consumer product by 2015, which is envisioned to consist of a charging station approximately the size of a desktop tower PC, and will be partnered with a variety of receiving platforms such as built-in electronics, battery replacements and add-on receivers for legacy devices.
What this means for you:
We’ve a bit of a wait until the Cota arrives for consumers, but given the world’s aggressive adoption of mobile electronics and fondness for wireless aesthetics, it’s likely that even if Ossia fails, other companies will rise to the challenge. According to Zeine, the technology is as safe as current Wifi technology probably permeating your house and office right now, as it works in the same frequency spectrum. Whether or not you believe that platform to have any health implications is probably moot if you live or work in any urban first-world environment, as you are “soaking in it” as we speak. Assuming the health question is resolved to everyone’s satisfaction, Zeine is predicting a complete paradigm shift in how we look at mobile technology, envisioning a world without batteries and the concept of “charging” made obsolete by an omnipresent power source. Are you ready to ditch the power cords? It may be coming sooner than you think!