14 DAY TRIAL // Patents are being filed all the time. People get ideas on a regular basis, and those who think they have any chance of doing anything with them usually try to protect their intellectual property. Naturally, people like Amazon's CEO do the same if the situation calls for it.
In fact, Amazon's Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos has just finished filing an application for what he describes as “remote displays.”
This isn't just a technology for screens that receive video feeds wirelessly. If we were to get technical, screens can't actually receive video signals. Receiver chips/integrated circuits/ports/adapters do.
Still, Bezos refers to “remote displays” as the sum of everything that makes a screen receive and display video signals.
Producing images is just half of what its patent application describes, however. The other half is the “wireless power.”
We already have a bunch of wireless power rechargers on the market, pads on which phones can be placed in order to recover their energy over the air, with no need for cables.
Bezos' idea is similar, only that his remote displays would be able to recover energy in such a fashion from a greater distance than a couple of inches.
Base stations would need to be nearby, to provide the data and power, but if everything is set up well, the theory is that the screens will last for a long time, and maybe won't need recharging at all.
Rechargeable batteries will probably still be included in the products, just in case, but the benefits of constant power recovery cannot be denied.
Colleges would, in theory, be able to keep lots of screens operational, even those in the possession of students, just by having base stations all over the campus.
Car windshields could incorporate them too, and it would not be a stretch to imagine something like Google Glass benefiting.
Amazon is still trying to figure out how it will charge users for the data and constant power supply.