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Wires — they’re a right pain in the proverbial, aren’t they? Wi-Fi has freed the Internet from the tyranny of cables, but the fact we still have to tie our phones to the wall to juice them up remains a shocking liberty. Which is why Google promises wireless charging accessories for the Google Nexus 4 “as soon as possible”.
Google hasn’t made a song and dance about it — because the accessories aren’t ready — but the Nexus 4 has all the gubbins built in to recharge the battery using wireless technology. All you need is a charger that uses the Qi wireless charging standard.
That means the Nexus 4 will charge by placing it onto the charging mat that comes with the Nokia Lumia 920, which also uses Qi to charge sans cable. But Google is working on its own wireless charging accessories.
Wireless charging is based on the principle of induction. The science is quite complicated, but essentially the power going into the charging mat wishes really hard that it was in your phone, and when your phone is placed on the mat the electricity atomecules become so excited that they leap straight into the battery.
Of course, you still need to place your device on the charging mat and that has to be plugged into the wall, so it doesn’t entirely free you from the shackles of leaving your phone in one place while it charges. But you don’t need to worry about having the right cable — and in future, fingers crossed, charging mats will start to appear in public places.
Nokia’s inclusion of wire-free charging in the new Windows Phone 8 Lumia line-up heralded deals with airlines and coffee shops to place charging mats in caffs and lounges, and with Google getting involved we’re hopeful more establishments will want to get in on the action.
The Nexus 4 also has a 4G chip built-in, but it’s not turned on. That didn’t stop some intrepid Canadians from apparently managing to hack the Nexus 4 onto a 4G network, although when I spoke to Google the Big G was puzzled how they’d managed to do it, given that the Nexus has a 4G chip but no 4G radio.
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