"Wireless Age"

The MIT researchers who developed the "WiTricity" wireless power technology haven't set their sights on global broadcast power just yet, but the team is already envisioning wirelessly transmitting power to laptops or cell phones across an office or inside a house.

Because the power stream can be consistent, the devices would not even need batteries. long with LPs, audio tape, and dial-up modems, children of the future might wonder what a "power cord" was.

A team of researchers from MIT has demonstrated such a future, when they were recently able to light a 60-watt light bulb from an unconnected source about seven feet away.Dubbed "WiTricity," as in "wireless electricity," the research has been published in the June 7 issue of Science Express, an online publication of the esteemed journal, Science.Team leader Professor Marin Soljacic describes the "eureka" moment as one he experienced in his pajamas a few years ago.

He was looking at his cell phone on the kitchen counter. "It was probably the sixth time that month that I was awakened by my cell phone beeping to let me know that I had forgotten to charge it," he said in a statement. "It occurred to me that it would be so great if the thing took care of its own charging."