Wireless Charging May Not Be Doomed To Irrelevance

An LED light draws power wirelessly from the charging station below. (Rob Pegoraro/Yahoo Tech)

BARCELONA—Wireless charging is a decent idea that’s been held back for years by double and sometimes triple or quadruple vision: Instead of picking one standard that works well enough, the industry has fragmented itself among competing, incompatible implementations that may each flop and leave buyers stuck with useless hardware.

Yes, you’ve seen this format-war movie before… on Beta, Laserdisc, and HD-DVD.

But this year’s Mobile World Congress provided a little more room for optimism than before.

First off, Samsung’s debut of the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge—each of which support both Qi and Powermat wireless charging, the two most widely deployed versions—means devices capable of wireless charging will soon occupy millions of pockets and purses.

Qi, pronounced “chee,” has been around for a while. A handout from the Wireless Power Consortium, the trade group behind the specification, cites 79 phones that are compatible. But none of these 79 phones has been a flagship model you could expect to find sold by all four major U.S. wireless carriers, or bought by millions of shoppers. Note that while the S6 and S6 Edge will be able to draw current from both Qi and Powermat chargers, Samsung told me its own wireless-charging accessory will be a Qi surface.

It’s also getting slightly easier to find Qi charging surfaces. Last October, Marriott began putting Qi hardware in the lobbies of some of its hotels, and at MWC Ikea announced that it would soon sell furniture with Qi chargers built in.

A new smartphone app by the Qi developer Aircharge aims to show off all the places that its wireless charging surfaces are available; in Manhattan, it only found three publicly accessible Qi locations, all Marriott properties. So much for progress in the Big Apple.

And as the S6’s ambidextrous wireless charging capability illustrates, there are two sides to this story. Powermat’s longstanding technology is being folded into a developing rival to Qi called Rezence, a name that alludes to its use of magnetic resonance instead of Qi’s inductive charging.

A Nexus 4 phone hovers above the Qi logo. (Rob Pegoraro/Yahoo Tech)

What that means in practice, Qualcomm product manager Geoff Gordon explained here, is the ability to leave your device anywhere on a charging surface, not just within a tight radius of a charging target as is the case in current Qi surfaces. This system also doesn’t require direct contact, which Gordon demonstrated by holding an LED lamp half an inch over the surface providing it with electricity.

What Rezone doesn’t have, however, is support in shipping hardware—remember, Samsung’s S6 and S6 Edge only work with older Powermat chargers. Gordon said the group behind Rezence, the Alliance for Wireless Power, expects to see phone accessories go on sale in the second half of this year and Rezence-equipped phones arrive by the end of the year.

Meanwhile, the Wireless Power Consortium is working on a resonant-charging addition to the Qi specification that will bring some of the same virtues of Rezence. Existing Qi devices (disclosure: including my own Nexus 4) will work with future Qi surfaces that support this specification, Aircharge’s Ryan Sanderson said.

Another development I’m waiting to see: smartwatches besides the Moto 360 supporting wireless charging. If those things must require a proprietary charger instead of a standard micro-USB cable, why not employ wireless charging instead? At least some smartwatch owners would then be in a position to use the same charging surface for both watch and phone.

Meanwhile, there’s another possibility that’s hung over this technology since my first introduction to it in 2007: Apple, unrepresented at this show and in the two existing wireless-charging groups, will ship its own proprietary version of the concept. It might take the other big Apple for wireless charging to truly catch on.

Email Rob at rob@robpegoraro.com; follow him on Twitter at @robpegoraro.

Source: https://www.yahoo.com/tech/wireless-charging-may-not-be-doomed-to-irrelevance-112784007394.html

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These Are the Ultimate Smartphone Fanboys — and They're About to Do Battle

Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to present the two ultimate smartphone superfans.

But before I do, let me tell you why.

In less than two weeks, at a certain annual gathering of nerds and hipsters in Austin, Texas, Yahoo Tech is putting on a big production called the Fanboy Smartphone Challenge. We’re going to have two superfans go mano a mano in a battle that David Pogue calls “half game show, half science experiment, half serious.”

Our two young contestants will be battling for the ultimate prize: to be king of the smartphone fanboys. Our aim is nothing less than determining, once and for all, which smartphone platform is better, Apple or Android. A series of tasks and challenges will be handed out to our two brave contestants. They won’t be easy. But with such an important title on the line, they shouldn’t be.

The big show is Monday, March 16. We’ll have video of the whole thing here on Yahoo Tech. And now, meet the brawlers for the Fanboy Smartphone Challenge:

For Android: Derek Ross

Derek Ross, 35, has been Android faithful since early 2010, when he got his HTC Droid Incredible. Since then, Derek has become completely obsessed with the Android, putting the platform on his TV, his wrist, even his face (Google Glass). He has owned more tablets and smartphones than he will admit to in polite company.

Derek spends his free time as a contributing author for Android’s oldest news website, Phandroid.com, and has hosted a weekly Android hangout show for over a year.

When Derek’s not playing with his Nexus 6 or Nexus 7, he’s often found spreading the teachings of Matias Duarte, like a true Android fanboy.

For Apple: John Foley

John M. Foley, 27 years old, hails from Chicago. He’s a graduate of the University of Illinois, the same school where the HAL 9000, clearly Siri’s inspiration, was created. In his day job, John does data analytics and consulting.

You’ve probably seen John before: He’s that crazy guy on the news waiting overnight for each new iPhone. In his spare time, he nervously cheers on the Cubs, listens to podcasts nonstop, and uses Apple’s GarageBand and iMovie apps to feel like the rock star he wishes he were.

This is John’s submission to be the Apple rep in our Fanboy Challenge:

John comes to the challenge fully equipped with an iPhone 6 Plus, an iPad Air 2, a MacBook Pro, an iMac, and an AppleTV, and he is eagerly awaiting the Apple Watch.

Source: https://www.yahoo.com/tech/these-are-the-ultimate-smartphone-fanboys-and-112739488769.html

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The Galaxy S6 edge might be even more expensive than you thought

One of the things Samsung did not reveal during its surprisingly simple Galaxy S6 event — compared to previous theatrics performed on stage during Galaxy S announcements — was pricing details for its handsets. Reports, however, revealed unconfirmed price points for the 32GB, 64GB and 128GB Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge models, at least the Europeans ones, suggesting the curved model everyone seems to favor might be significantly more expensive than you think.

As it turns out, even Samsung U.K. now seems to indicate that buying a Galaxy S6 edge might be a bit harder on your wallet than you were hoping.

FROM EARLIER: Prices for Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge leaked

Spotted initially by SamMobile, Samsung U.K.’s Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge page only shows two models when it comes to storage size, the 64GB and 128GB ones. For some reason, the 32GB model is left out, though if you’re selecting the regular Galaxy S6 model you’ll immediately see a 32GB version pop up.

Samsung U.K. doesn’t list pricing points for these storage versions at this time, but the recent price leak suggested that the cheapest Galaxy S6 will cost €699, while the most affordable edge model will retail for €849 in the region. These are prices for the 32GB models, with each additional memory tier costing an extra €100, keeping the difference between the regular and curved models with similar storage at €150.

Assuming these prices are accurate for Europe, that might mean getting a Galaxy S6 edge could cost U.K. buyers significantly more than expected. On the other hand, considering that you can’t add more storage to any of the Galaxy S6 versions since both of them lack microSD slots, going for the 64GB version might be the better choice for many buyers, assuming your wallet can handle the extra strain.

It’s not clear at this time whether Samsung U.K.’s listing is an accident, as the company has yet to publish similar Galaxy S6 pages on its other local sites.

Source: https://www.yahoo.com/tech/s/galaxy-s6-edge-might-even-more-expensive-thought-143033043.html

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