do i need to be paranoid - yet

[AJ Dual]

I have read all the replies that have been posted.  Unfortunately, none of them address this wifi-powered RFID chip as the source of power.  Nor do they seem to address any alternative technology that might be employed to provide power via some 4G wifi network everybody will have some sday.  So I find myself back to the original question once more:

Do I need to be paranoid - yet?

stay safe.

edited for typo

Inverse square law by which EM frequencies propagate, and by which you can calculate your received intensity by your distance from the emitter source makes this impossible.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse-square_law

So at one foot, you have Wattage "X" per square foot of RF to power your phone. At two feet you have x/4, at three feet x/9 at four feet x/16, five x/25 and so on...

It would take a rather unhealthy amount of RF for this to even work over a distance of several yards, much less the several miles a cell tower is expected to cover.  And the antennas on the phones would be unreasonably large to even have a chance of catching enough RF into voltage to power anything even close to resembling normal two-way cell phone function, much less Facebook, Google Maps, and Angry birds. 

Maybe the guy was confused by the existence of these type of products:

http://www.amazon.com/PowerBot%C2%AE-Compatible-Including-Smartphones-Receivers/dp/B00F6SQ1D6/ref=br_lf_m_1001269901_1_4_ttl?ie=UTF8&s=wireless&pf_rd_p=1768843782&pf_rd_s=center-3&pf_rd_t=1401&pf_rd_i=1001269901&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1MMC54YTHF12VCGQFP5F

You place a receiver coil, similar to one of those RF security tags/stickers you find inside clothes and shoes at the big-box store onto the battery inside, hook up the contacts to the battery and phone's internal leads, and you can charge it by just laying the phone directly on the induction pad (effectively zero distance) instead going through the unbearable and time consuming burden of plugging it in.

#firstworldproblems 

[RoadKingLarry]

Not yet (that is publicly acknowledged anyway) but the Justice Dept has said they'd be ok with it.

 
"Natural gas explosion"
 

[230RN]

But, AJ Dual, you're talking about near-isotropic cell tower power radiation.  That is, the cell tower radiates in more or less equal directions except down.

But it might be possible someday to beam power toward a cell phone, knowing the phone's location.  A beam does not violate the inverse square law, it just cuts the distance factor involved unless it is a perfectly non-divergent beam. In that special case the distance factor falls out of the inverse square law.  What you send out hits the target with the same power regardless of distance.

In general, though, in the present Radio Shack Thesis, we're talking picoWatts coming off the antenna in your cell phone picking up the tower's energy for use in the rest of your cell phone's circuitry.  I doubt you could ever even use that for long-term charging of a battery above its self-discharge rate to operate the rest of the circuitry, especially the transmitter.  However, who knows?   The tiny signal coming off a crystal radio set [antenna] just barely operates an electrostatic earphone, so with the advances in nanocircuitry, all predictions are off.

It might be possible with other power sources, though, like photoelectric cells or maybe an inertial charging mechanism like in watches.  By saying "like," I mean to imply that these two suggestions are not exhaustive of the possibilities.

Terry, 230RN

Edited to add the bracketed "antenna" regarding crystal radio sets and correct poster's screen name.

[Balog]

Maybe they found Tesla's notes. :D

[230RN]

A loooooong time ago my father told me that Dick Tracy's watch radio was impossible.

But neither transistors nor large scale integrated circuits had even been conceived yet.  These were things that were not dreamed of in his philosophy.

No, my Pop's name was not Horatio.

Terry

[Strings]

And we are, literally, at the point of Dick Tracy's radio watch

http://www.omate.com/

Stand-alone smartwatch, which takes a sim card. Basically, and Android powered phone on your wrist...

[230RN]

^ How much would the microscope accessory cost?  

[Boomhauer]

The initial post was sent while I was talking with some guy who was telling me about what the guy at the Radio Shack had told him, which, with much prodding, back-filling, and coaxing the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth - yes, all three at the same time - was that the guy at the Radio Shack had told him that pretty soon no cell phones would have batteries and because he (the guy known by the guy I was talking with) worked at the Radio Shach he (same paranthetical guy) ought to know.  (Yes, it's the gun shop counter guy syndrome.  Live with it.)

Having settled that, allow me to fill you in a bit on the claim so brazenly made:

I managed to talk with the guy at the Radio Shack and told him what the other guy said he (the guy at the Radio Shack) had said about cell phones soon having no batteries.  The guy at the Radio Shack told me that he had heard someone say that there was a way to get the cellphone tower antennae to send radio waves to cellphones, and that if they put RIFD-like chips in the phones they could be powered by the cellphone tower radio waves, just like hardwired phopnes are powered by the telephone wires.  The guy at the Radio Shack also told me that it would not happen until the whole country was covered by 4G networks so they (the cellphone companies, I'm guessing) could use wifi to power your phone without batteries in the phone.

I have read all the replies that have been posted.  Unfortunately, none of them address this wifi-powered RFID chip as the source of power.  Nor do they seem to address any alternative technology that might be employed to provide power via some 4G wifi network everybody will have some sday.  So I find myself back to the original question once more:

Do I need to be paranoid - yet?

stay safe.

edited for typo

The guy at the CellphoneRadio Shack is pulling that out of his ass.

[AJ Dual]

But, A.J. Dual, you're talking about near-isotropic cell tower power radiation.  That is, the cell tower radiates in more or less equal directions except down.

But it might be possible someday to beam power toward a cell phone, knowing the phone's location.  A beam does not violate the inverse square law, it just cuts the distance factor involved unless it is a perfectly non-divergent beam. In that special case the distance factor falls out of the inverse square law.  What you send out hits the target with the same power regardless of distance.

There actually is a potential new tech in the works for that. Not to power the phone... high concentration energy beams would be even worse from a safety standpoint.

However, using constructive and destructive interference, (Think like intersecting ripples in a pond) there's some technology being tested where you sit in a virtual "micro-cell" created by the towers round you in a constructive interference peak and you get 100% bandwidth to your your phone at all times. Maybe even gigabits/sec of data...

http://www.wired.com/2014/02/steve_perlman_pcell/

[230RN]

The guy at the CellphoneRadio Shack is pulling that out of his ass.

So was Chester Gould's wrist radio.  He even "graduated" to wrist TVs.



So there, Horatio! :D

AJ Dual:  Interesting.  The phasing must be a bear.  But I'm not shocked by the possibility. (Not a pun.)



Terry

[Tallpine]

obviously they are using the electrical impulses of our own nervous system to run the phone.

Go barefoot so you are earth grounded and carrying no potential charge        


Actually, though - the way most everyone has to have the latest and greatest genius phone, why bother replacing the battery when it is obsolete after two weeks 

[AJ Dual]

So was Chester Gould's wrist radio.  He even "graduated" to wrist TVs.



So there, Horatio! :D

AJ Dual:  Interesting.  The phasing must be a bear.  But I'm not shocked by the possibility. (Not a pun.)

Terry

Yeah, the physics is at least plausible. But yeah, getting the peak or island by phasing two or three different 800 MHz to GHz range signals seems a bit dicey.

However, I could see just even a crude version of the technology for known fixed areas, like knowing there's tons of cell phones in the park, and on the freeway bridge but almost none over the river right next to it, and being able to concentrate all the signal where it's needed at even a city block level could be a game changer.

[230RN]

Tallpine:  "Actually, though - the way most everyone has to have the latest and greatest genius phone, why bother replacing the battery when it is obsolete after two weeks  rolleyes"

Hammers.  Nails.  Heads thereof. :D

AJ Dual:  Again, interesting, and you'd have to  "instantly" compensate for target movement --but at my age I'm still a little stuck in the universe where 300 MHz was the edge of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Terry, 230RN

[RevDisk]

That happened in the US?

I'm not sure of the point of the question?

Not being sarcastic, honestly curious. AFAIK, legally, I was previously unaware that location matters when it comes to assassinating US citizens without due process. I'm very aware that circumstances matter, intentions matter, etc. It'd be one thing if a person was say, voluntarily acting as a human shield for Osama bin Laden or was actively at war with the US. But AFAIK, US citizens aren't suddenly fair game if they leave the borders of the US?

Having settled that, allow me to fill you in a bit on the claim so brazenly made:

I managed to talk with the guy at the Radio Shack and told him what the other guy said he (the guy at the Radio Shack) had said about cell phones soon having no batteries.  The guy at the Radio Shack told me that he had heard someone say that there was a way to get the cellphone tower antennae to send radio waves to cellphones, and that if they put RIFD-like chips in the phones they could be powered by the cellphone tower radio waves, just like hardwired phopnes are powered by the telephone wires.  The guy at the Radio Shack also told me that it would not happen until the whole country was covered by 4G networks so they (the cellphone companies, I'm guessing) could use wifi to power your phone without batteries in the phone.

I have read all the replies that have been posted.  Unfortunately, none of them address this wifi-powered RFID chip as the source of power.  Nor do they seem to address any alternative technology that might be employed to provide power via some 4G wifi network everybody will have some sday.  So I find myself back to the original question once more:

Do I need to be paranoid - yet?

If you are asking the question in regards to the apparantly insane ravings of a Radio Shack employee, the answer is no. Because it's not remotely correct, and would take half a decade to implement anyways so you'd have plenty of advanced notice.

WiFi does not use the same frequency as RFID.
Passive RFID doesn't generate surplus power. It uses basically all of the very minimal power it gets bounce back a reply. Active RFID is battery powered.
Beaming power is inefficient compared to plugging a device into a wall or charging a battery, this is unlikely to change.