Intel joins Alliance for Wireless Power

I might be wrong, but charging technology is more analogy so the SoC bits are a bit less relevant. There's lot more to be done on the digital front.

For the moment I'll stick with my electro-quadrent (micro-USB, mini-USB, phone and Apple - from the pound shop of all places) as that way I can conveniently still use the connected item without worrying about charging myself or ensuring I don't mess up the wireless charge.

But it's interesting tech anyway, especially if it can be evolved to safely charge at a reasonable distance, a la Tesla's dream.

The tyranny of wires

I think wireless charging is a great idea but most of the implementations so far involve a pebble / slab which is plugged into a USB cable of some kind. So it's the exact same number of wires. Some phones go into a docked mode when they're plugged in this way which I guess is useful if the charger were on a bedside locker.

I think the tech is only going to take off when the chargers are built into car dashboards, into the feet of monitors or tops of PCs or other places people commonly charge their phones. It would be nice if it were coupled with a proper wireless sync though equivalent to the sorts of things people use a USB cable for - mass storage, development, MTP media transfer etc.