25岁美女发明家打造最强无线充电器

    之前没有人尝试过无线充电吗？

    无线充电作为一种技术门类，当然肯定已经有人尝试过了，而且是被很多人使用很多不同的技术尝试过了。但在超声波这一块还没人尝试过。任何能被发射到空气中的东西都可以被转换为某种可用能源。因此人们已经尝试过用激光无线充电，但激光可以致盲。此外还有一家叫Powermat的公司使用了电磁技术，你可以把手机放在一张充电垫上实现充电。但我认为它还不是真正的无线充电。另外一家名叫WiTricity的公司还使用了电磁共振耦合技术，这也是一种完全具有可行性的技术，但它只在给距离很近的大型物体充电时才有效。如果你想在更远的距离上给设备充电，那么它的接收器要比你想充电的设备还要大。所以还存在一个便利性问题。

    因此，归根到底，超声波是唯一一个既安全又可以远距离充电的技术，同时又可以保持设备的小巧紧凑。超声波是唯一一种能够用于消费电子产品的具有商用前景的无线充电技术。

    但是它也有一个缺陷，就是没有办法像Wi-Fi那样穿墙。

    不过，如果你看看它的好处的话，这也未必算一种缺陷。正是这种特性，使得超声波成为目前最安全的数据传输系统。

    但是你还是希望它能够穿墙的，对吗？

    当然，但它在物理上是不可能的。如果真有这种可能，我认为它可能会损害数据传输的安全性。但即便它只能在室内使用，你也不妨妨想想它的应用前景。它不仅可以在家庭和办公室使用，同时也可以用于机场、会议厅、音乐厅等等。而且你随时都可以给任意数量的设备充电。

    当uBeam还处于非常早期的研发阶段时，你就获得了融资。当时你的压力和紧迫感是否很大？

    在整个过程中，我都有一种近似疯狂的紧迫感。我不断地向前推动它，但你能做的也就是用力推动它而已。我给自己设定了一个时间线，但由于无法满足它，因此我经常感到失望。但是在与发明过新技术的人聊天时，他们会说：“天哪，你用了两年就把它做出来了？时间短得令人难以置信。”在我看来，我们花的时间像恐龙时代一样漫长，不过对于那些真正经历过发明创造的人来说，他们会觉得这个过程已经很快了。但是这个过程痛苦死了。人们会过来问我们的进展，但是光要解释哪个流程要花这么长时间，就得花上几个小时。

    这个过程令人沮丧吗？

    当然。这种沮丧感贯穿整个研发过程，我总是想：“好吧，三个月里就会见效果，我们已经有了很好的新点子来让这个换能器出效果。”所以有人问时，我不会马上给他反馈，而是说我会在一个月内告诉你。不过后来我们失败了，然后我们会说，我们要做一些改变，这样它就能出效果。这种情况大概重复了五次，每次改变都需要三个月的时间。每次我们想对设备做出某种改变，代价都是极为高昂的。而且它拖延的时间也是非常长的。当你失败了五次，但每次都取得了某些微小的进步时，它依然促使着你继续前进，你仍然可以保持乐观，因为前方已经出现曙光了。但与此同时，它也的确令你感到心力交瘁。你会不停地想：“如果下次还不成功，我们该怎么办？”在最终实现你的目标之前，你根本停不下来。真正使我熬过整个过程的是这种想法：“尽管它很难，但它是可能实现的。”我知道只要它是可能的，我就必须做下去，因为它是一件意义非常重大的事。如果我做的是某件稍小的事，或是某件我觉得不会对全世界产生如此大影响的事，那么在这些时候，我可能就坚持不下去了。

    最后，我们的一位承包商，也就是我们的现任CTO，经过长达14个月的“死亡马拉松”，终于开发出一种全新的换能器。当时我们已经没有资金了，我们同时在测试两个设计，我们知道其中一个必须成功，否则的话，我们就彻底玩完了。最后，两个设计都成功了，但他的设计要便宜得多，也强大得多，所以最后我们采用了他的方案。

    说说原型产品成功的那一刻，如果存在某个重要时刻的话。

    那就是我们CTO的换能器开始奏效那一刻。我给你描绘一下我在那段时日的生活状态：从2013年12月到2014年6月的六个半月里，我基本上都是住在我们公司CTO那间位于在北弗吉尼亚的小车库里。那是我整个人生中最糟糕的一个冬季，我们就像富士康工厂的工人一样，每天要在那间没有窗户的小车库里工作10小时，呼吸着有毒的气体，一遍又一遍地反复尝试。

    到了四月或五月，我们终于测试了最后的产品，而且它成功了，毫不夸张地说，我快乐得尖叫了起来。我的脸上挂着最大的笑容，因为我知道前途是光明的。我们知道这是真的，它会成功的，我们验证了需要验证的最后一步。

    现在我们都在等它上市销售。

    是的，全世界大多数人还不知道它，但它的确很赞。所以我们会选择合适的时机举行发布会，它会成为一种全新的技术，我认为全世界都会因为这种体验而感到兴奋。

    放眼未来，在现有或可能出现的技术中，有哪些让你兴奋或感兴趣？

    有一些。我会快点说，因为我有点太兴奋了。这些技术主要在健康、运输和3D全息技术领域。去年我对利用光雾效果建立3D全息影像的技术非常感兴趣。我想构建这样一个系统：你坐在这里，而你旁边那个人其实身在中国，但你可以触摸他、看到他、感觉他。我制造了很多全息投影仪，它们也很酷。

    它与2012年科切拉音乐节上已故歌手图派克的全息投影有什么区别吗？

    是的，有区别。它是真正的三维影像，而不仅仅是一个投影。另一种技术是，我觉得人们应该在身体里植入某种血液传感器，不间断地监测你的体征指标。现在人们只有在很难受的时候才去看医生。为什么我们不在身体里植入一个传感器，在症状显现出来之前就给我们发送警报呢？另外，这个传感器还可以与嵌入式“药箱”搭配使用，比如说当人体处于低糖状态时，它就会自动向身体提供糖分。也就是说，你会有一个外部的，但同时又是嵌入式的自动化系统来管理你的身体健康。

    这听起来像是人体半机器人化的第一步。

    是的！对于我们的数码世界，我们已经有了很多数据和见解，但对于最重要的系统，也就是我们的身体，我们却没有足够的认识。最后，治愈癌症也是一件大事。如果癌症是无法根治的，那么我们也可以研制新型的核磁共振仪，在肿瘤比现在小得多的时候探测到它们的存在。目前癌症一检查出来经常就是晚期，主要原因就在于现有的设备只能看到一定大小的肿瘤。如果我们能探测到更小尺寸的肿瘤，我们就可以更早地阻止它。所以说，与其想办法根治它，或许我们应该做的是利用机器更早地捕捉它。

    很多你喜欢的点子会不会吓到多数人？它们听起来很有阿西莫夫的风格。

    我已经想过怎样实施这些点子了。说到我自己，我从来不喜欢看牙医，也从来不喜欢看医生。所以如果有人让我往身体里植入一个东西，作为一个未来主义者，我可能被说服；但作为一个普通人，我会觉得这样做很讨厌，甚至有些吓人。所以我认为这种事情应该在人非常小的时候，在儿科医生的指导下完成。我们以后可能养成这种习惯，也就是出生后，大约两岁大的时候，你就会被植入这种东西，然后带着它长大，它会成为你人生的一部分。人们只不过是对自己不习惯的东西感到恐惧。（财富中文网）

    译者：朴成奎

    审校：任文科

    Had no one ever tried wireless charging before?

    Wireless charging as a category absolutely has been tried before and is being done by multiple parties using different technologies. But in terms of ultrasonic power, no. Anything that can be beamed through the air can be converted into a usable type of energy. So, people have tried laser for wireless power, but lasers can blind you. And then there’s [Duracell] Powermat, which uses induction and is magnetic, so you stick your phone on a mat and it charges. I don’t consider that true wireless power. Then with magnetic resonance coupling, which a company called WiTricity is using, it’s a totally viable technology but it’s only effective in charging really large objects over really short distances. If you want to charge something that way at a greater distance, you need receivers that are larger than the device you’re charging, so there’s a convenience issue.

    So at the end of the day, ultrasound is the only technology that is safe, that can travel the distance, that can charge your device, while remaining small and compact. Ultrasonic is the only type of energy that can be commercialized for consumer devices.

    Well, with one hurdle being that it doesn’t work through walls, like Wi-Fi does.

    Well, it’s not necessarily a hurdle if you look at the positives. It’s what makes ultrasound the most secure data transmission system in existence.

    But, pie-in-the-sky hope, you’d want it to work through walls, right?

    Oh, of course. But it’s physically impossible. If it were possible, I would take that over the secure data transmission. But even working in one room, think about where that can be applied. Not only within homes and rooms, but think about airports, conference halls, concerts. And you can charge an arbitrary number of devices at any time.

    You first raised big funding when uBeam was in really early stages. Did you feel a lot of pressure and urgency?

    There was a sense of insane urgency throughout the entire process. And I pushed and pushed and pushed, but you can only push so hard. I had set myself an artificial deadline, and I was continuously disappointed that I wasn’t hitting that. But in speaking with people who had created new technologies before, they would say, “Holy crap, you did that in two years? That’s incredibly short.” In my mind, we were like dinosaurs already, but people who have actually experienced creating new technology before said this was actually pretty fast. But the process killed me. People would check in and ask our progress, but to explain what was actually taking so long would take hours.

    Was that frustrating?

    Of course. And the other thing is that throughout the process, I always thought, “Okay, it’s going to work in three months. We’ve got this great new idea to make this transducer function.” So instead of giving someone an update I’d say I’ll tell you in one month. But then we’d fail, and then we’d say we will make a certain change, and then it will work, and that happened about five times. It took about three months to make each change. It was extraordinarily expensive every single time we wanted to make a change to the device. And the lag time was mind-boggling. When you fail five times but you take tiny steps forward each time, it keeps you going. You can stay positive because there’s still light at the end of the tunnel. But at the same time, it really wears you down. You constantly have to think, “Okay, so if this next option doesn’t work, what will we do?” And you just can’t stop until you accomplish your goal. What really kept me going through the entire process was, “Even though this is so hard, it’s still possible.” And I knew that if it was still possible, I had to do it, because it would be so huge. I know that if I was working on something smaller, or something that I didn’t believe could make such an impact on the world then I wouldn’t have been able to keep going through those times.

    So one of our contractors we brought on, who is is now our CTO, created an entirely new type of transducer during our 14-month marathon of death— it ended up working on the first try. We were running out of money. We had two designs running in parallel, and we knew one of them had to work or we’d be screwed. In the end, both designs worked, but his was so much cheaper and so much more powerful that we went with his.

    Take me to the moment when the prototype worked successfully, if there was one big moment.

    It was when our CTO’s transducer worked. To paint the picture of what life was like at that time: for six and a half months, from December 2013 through June 2014, I was basically living in the tiny garage of my CTO in northern Virginia. It was the worst winter of my entire life, and we spent 10 hours a day just like little Foxconn workers in this garage with no windows, breathing in toxic fumes and trying to get this thing to work over and over and over again.

    It was either in April or May when we tested out the hybrid, it worked, and I literally screamed for joy. I had the biggest smile on my face because I knew that the future was bright. We knew it was real, it’s going to work, we proved the last piece that we needed to prove.

    And now we all just wait for it to come out.

    Yes. Most of the world still doesn’t know about this, which is awesome. So we’re going to release it when we release it, and it’ll be something completely new, and I think that the world will be delighted by the experience.

    Looking toward the future, what are some of other existing or eventual technologies that excite and interest you?

    There are a few. And I’ll try to be quick because I get a little too excited. They span between health and transportation and 3-D holograms. So, last year I got really into the idea of creating 3-D, touchable holograms in the air using fog. I wanted to create a system where you could be sitting next to somebody who is in China but could actually touch them, see them, feel them. I built a bunch of hologram machines, which was cool.

    Is this different from the Tupac hologram at Coachella in 2012?

    Yeah. This would actually be a three-dimensional display, not just a projection. That’s one thing, the other is I think that people should have some kind of embedded blood sensor that reads your levels continuously. To me, it’s kind of crazy that only once people feel really crappy, they go to a doctor and find out what’s wrong with them. Why don’t we have some sensor built into the body that lets you know before you feel ill, and ultimately, is connected to an embedded dispensary that can put sugar into your body if your glucose is low? You basically would have an external, but embedded, automatic system that regulates your body.

    This sound like the first step in making us all half-robot, though…

    Right! Yes. What I think is crazy is we have so much data and insight into our digital world, but we have no insight into what’s actually going on inside the most important system of all, our bodies. And then, finally, curing cancer is a big one. If it’s not curable, we need to make MRI machines that detect lumps and growths much smaller than what they can detect right now. Part of the reason we detect cancer at stages where it’s a little too late is that the machines that detect cancer can only see lumps of a certain size. If we were able to detect cancerous growths at a size smaller, we could stop it earlier on. So instead of curing it maybe what we need to do is use machines to catch it much earlier.

    Many of these ideas you like—wouldn’t they scare most people? Its all very Isaac Asimov.

    I’ve thought about how to implement this. Speaking for myself, I never want to go to the dentist, I never want to go to the various doctors. So if someone told me to implant something in my body, as a futurist, I’d be down, but as a citizen I would think it is annoying. And maybe scary. So I think it’s something that needs to be done when you’re super young with the guidance of a pediatrician. We could just get in the habit of, once you’re born, when you’re two years old or something, you get this thing implanted and you grow up with it and it becomes part of your life. People are just scared of things that they’re not used to.