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" Powermat Home &amp;amp;amp; Office Charging Mat: $100 Cellphones, iPods, cameras, Bluetooth headsets, portable game systems; the charging cords for all that gadgetry add up. Powermat purports to cut the cords--the charging mat uses magnetic induction to wirelessly power up to three devices that have been placed on the pad.  Delivering power through magnetic induction isn&amp;#039;t really a new idea--it&amp;#039;s the same method of power transmission that&amp;#039;s long allowed electric toothbrushes to charge by merely laying them on a dock. But the technology has traditionally been a very slow and inefficient way of delivering power--acceptable for a toothbrush that can be allowed to charge all night in preparation for a 3-minute brush, but not nearly enough power fast enough for watt-hungry consumer electronic devices. However, the past year has seen a sort of revolution in the field, with numerous manufacturers attempting to realize induction&amp;#039;s potential as a way to fight cord clutter and keep gadgets charged. The first mainstream consumer gadget to do this was the Palm Pre, which uses an accessory called a Touchstone to wirelessly charge. But none of these devices has captured our imagination quite like Powermat. We first saw Powermat at CES last January, and were immediately impressed at what it was promising: a simple, good-looking charging mat that could handle any number of common gadgets (as long as you purchase an adaptor to make them compatible). But what struck us as most extraordinary was the its claim that Powermat could charge gadgets just as fast as a wall plug does, if not a teensy bit faster. Compared to what companies have been able to pull off with electric toothbrushes, this seems truly remarkable. In practice, the Powermat does exactly what it claims to do. It charges your gadgets, and it appears to do it as fast as a wall outlet. The one big, obvious downside (other than the fact that the Powermat itself still needs to be plugged into the wall) is that you need to buy an adapter for any gadget you want to hook up to the thing. At $30 to $40 a pop, this can quickly add up. For some gadgets, the adapter replaces the pre-existing battery panel, which allows it to work without adding an extra layer of bulk. But for the ones that the Powermat doesn&amp;#039;t do this with--notably the iPhone, which has no removable battery panel--the Powermat adapter adds a significant amount of mass. It should also be noted that the Powermat has a three-device limit, meaning that your net loss in terms of extraneous power cords is only two. Still, the device works very well--so well that it feels like magic.  And the best is yet to come. The company claims it&amp;#039;s going to build the tech directly into tables--we recently saw a demo of a futuristic kitchen where appliances draw power from the counter. The current Powermat may just be a first step in our drive toward a completely wireless home. In that regard, it&amp;#039;s a successful one. Powermat&amp;#039;s adapters ($30 to $40 apiece) allow it to charge phones, cameras, MP3 players, portable game systems, headsets and GPS devices. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/gadgets/reviews/a4931/4336578/>