
Wireless electricity? It's here - aronvox
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/03/14/tech/innovation/wireless-electricity/index.html
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EGreg
Perfectly safe eh? Our bodies run on electrical signals, including our heart.
In addition, the claim that it's as safe as wifi assumes the power levels will
be the same. Charging a car and catching an internet signal requires vastly
different power levels. And one is over 9000

[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_electronic_devices_a...](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_electronic_devices_and_health)

Here is an overview of studies of slightly stronger radiation from mobile
phones:

[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone_radiation_and_he...](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone_radiation_and_health)

The World Health Organization's conclusion is that radiofrequency
electromagnetic fields are "possibly carcinogenic to humans (Group 2B), a
category used when a causal association is considered credible, but when
chance, bias or confounding cannot be ruled out with reasonable confidence."

[http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs193/en/](http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs193/en/)

Our brains run on electrical signals and are affected:
[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/8340817/Mobile-...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/8340817/Mobile-
phones-do-affect-brain-activity-study-finds.html)

And finally, the assumption of safety above is that all people are roughly the
same in their sensitivity. There is already a class of people completely
intolerant to electromagnetic radiation of the strength of cellphone signals
and sometimes live in Faraday cages to avoid headaches:

[http://www.foodsmatter.com/es/personal_histories/index_es_pe...](http://www.foodsmatter.com/es/personal_histories/index_es_personal_histories.html)

As we increase the power of the fields, this will cause more problems for a
greater number of people. Do we really have the right to impose this on others
for the sake of our own, slightly improved, "wireless charging convenience"??

~~~
sp332
Your body only picks up the signal if it's the right size to be an antenna at
that frequency. Otherwise, you'll get just as much energy absorbed into your
body as a wifi radio does from an FM station - not immeasurably small, but
negligible. And don't forget, that the car is tuned to the power transmitter
and absorbs most of the field strength. Since they're right next to each other
in your garage, there won't be as much power leaking out.

Edit: Your sources are terrible. Source 1: wikipedia? quote "[T]here is no
consistent evidence to date that WiFi and WLANs adversely affect the health of
the general population." Source 2: wikipedia again? Lots of stuff in here, but
not a single reproduced effect on health. Source 3: "WHO will conduct a formal
risk assessment of all studied health outcomes from radiofrequency fields
exposure by 2012." No results on that page. Source 4: a small writeup in the
Telegraph with no link to the actual study. " metabolism in the brain region
closest to the antenna... was 7 per cent higher when the mobile was switched
on." Cool, a result! No word on whether it was ever repeated, oh well. Source
5: a nice list of anecdotes.

~~~
stinos
The article doesn't even mention frequency. Maybe it's just a static field.

All in all, the article leaves way to many technical questions unanswered,
making it very hard to figure out whether or not there can be health impact.
That being said, an MRI scanner also uses strong magnetic fields and there are
tons of safety measures for that, but the fields are (as far as I can imagine)
an order of magnitude stronger than what is used here.

------
NerdfaceKillah
What'd happen if you had a pace maker? Would it not mess with that
potentially?

------
lettergram
Tesla came up with this about a hundred years ago[1]. Seems pretty silly to
act like it's new all the sudden.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_power](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_power)

~~~
sp332
Tesla's idea, while cool, depends on a common ground (possibly just the earth
itself) between the transmitter and the receiver. It's not the same tech.

