Electronics has already cut the data cord. Can it now cut the power cord as well?
电源线会和数据线一样慢慢消失吗?
Jun 27th 2015 | Seattle | From the print edition
Wireless Power-transmission
DRONES may one day transform the way parcels are delivered, crops monitored and suspects apprehended. Those who talk up these possibilities, though, often neglect to mention the drawbacks of such robot aircraft—one of which is that most cannot fly for more than a quarter of an hour before they need to find a human being to swap their batteries for them or plug them into an electrical socket.
无人机没准儿有一天会给我们生活的方方面面都带来巨大的改变，无论是包裹投递，还是农作物监控，甚至是抓捕嫌犯。然而大谈特谈这些可能性的人们却忽略了无人驾驶飞机的弊端，其中一个就是他们需要定期的由人来更换电池或者充电。
Joshua Smith, a computer scientist at the University of Washington, in Seattle, hopes to change that. In May he started a company called Wibotic that plans to recharge drones (and also earthbound robots) without them having to establish an awkward physical connection with a plug. A ’bot whose batteries were low would simply manoeuvre itself to within half a metre or so of a recharging station to top them up. LaserMotive, another Seattle-based company, is even more ambitious. It is developing a system designed to replenish the batteries of drones that are still aloft, using lasers and photovoltaic cells.
只要有问题或者有需求就会有人想去改变，无人机用途那么广，总需要人来充电哪行?于是华盛顿大学一个哥们 JS 就搞了个公司 Wibotic，主要目的就是让无人机无需通过物理连接充电，否则那多尴尬啊，飞着飞着还得找个地方插上线充电，感觉特别low，如果能在空中无需通过物理连线就把电冲了就爽了，Wibotic 和 LaserMotive 这两家公司主要就是想实现无人机无线充电。
The idea of wireless power-transmission of this sort goes back more than a century. In 1893 Nikola Tesla (pictured), who was one of the pioneers of industrial-scale electricity, illuminated light bulbs across a room in a demonstration at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago. And that was a mere fleabite compared with his grander ambitions. He claimed to believe it possible to broadcast power around the world using a system of towers and balloons, and even convinced J.P. Morgan to back a trial.
事实上，无线充电这个想法本身是比较老的，1893年大神特斯拉就提出了一个非常牛逼的想法：通过塔和气球在全球传播能量，还赢得了摩根的投资。读了这个我很困惑就去查了一下，这个疯狂的哥们是这么想的：
He theorized from these experiments that if he injected electric current into the Earth at just the right frequency he could harness what he believed was the planets own electrical charge and cause it to resonate at a frequency that would be amplified in "standing waves" that could be tapped anywhere on the planet to run devices or, through modulation, carry a signal.
大致意思可能是这样的(完全不懂)：将电流以正确的频率注入地球，然后在全球任意一个地方都可以用来运行装置或者传递新号!
That failed, as most other physicists of the time predicted it would. More modest remote power-transmission is, however, now attracting attention again. The technology Tesla pioneered is already being used to charge mobile phones, and researchers are working on similarly wirelessly powered kitchen appliances, military equipment such as heads-up displays, and medical devices ranging from heart pumps to brain monitors.
这个想法失败了，正如大部分其他的物理学家预测的那样。但是特斯拉提出来的概念现在正在被广泛的用来给各种东西充电：手机、加点、军事装备以及医疗设备等等。
Working Principles
Lasers aside, the principle behind most wireless power-transmission is a piece of basic physics known asinduction. In this process an alternating current passing through a coiled wire creates an oscillating magnetic field. That field then induces another alternating current in a second, nearby coil. If the transmitting and receiving coils are close together and aligned in the same direction, almost all of the power will be transmitted.
大部分无线能量传输原理都是电磁感应。交流电通过线圈会产生震荡磁场，这个磁场会在附近的线圈中产生另一个交流电场。如果发送端和接收端的线圈足够近、方向对齐的话，能量传输率为100%。
Inductively coupled systems like this thus work well for things like repowering electric toothbrushes. They would be impractical, though, for a drone trying to hover over a charging station. Wibotic’s answer is to use tuned electrical circuits in place of simple transmitting and receiving coils. When such circuits are tuned to the same resonant frequency, they exchange energy more efficiently.
电感耦合系统用来给电动牙刷啥的充电还行，给无人机充电不现实，因为无人机并不是静止的。所以可能需要将简单的传输电路改为调制电路来提高能量传输效率。
For remote charging to take off metaphorically as well as literally, though, devices employing it need to be interoperable. That means establishing industry standards. Unfortunately, in a competitionreminiscent of that in the 1890s between alternating current (Tesla’s preference) and direct current (promoted by Thomas Edison), three main consumer standards have emerged.
远程充电要想成为现实，相关的设备必须是可以相互操作的，也就意味需要统一的工业标准。然而不幸的是，现在已经出现了三个这样的标准，正如当年的交流直流之争一样，谁也不甘让步。
The Tesla exception
The rise of electric cars opens yet another market for remote power-transmission. Carmakers are keen to avoid the standards war that has broken out among makers of smaller gadgets. If convenientwireless charging lets carmakers halve the size of electric-vehicle batteries, it could slashthousands of dollars from their prices. That would make a huge difference to the economics of owning and running them. Nikola Tesla failed to beam power between continents but his tricks may yet succeed in something equally dramatic: decarbonising the world’s road vehicles.
远程能量传输用在电动汽车上挺牛逼的，充电根本都不用下车了，就跟找热点一样，找到了一对齐就自动开始冲了。汽车制造商才不管什么标准呢，你们吵你们的，我们做我们的。如果无线充电能够实现，汽车电池就能变小一半，价格也会随之大大下降。电动汽车势必变得更加有吸引力。特斯拉可能又对人类做出了一个新的贡献，那就是给路上的车辆除碳。
句型练习
原句：
Those who talk up these possibilities, though, often neglect to mention the drawbacks of such robot aircraft—one of which is that most cannot fly for more than a quarter of an hour before they need to find a human being to swap their batteries for them or plug them into an electrical socket.
推荐句型:
Those who talk up the benefits of X, though, often neglect to mention the drawbacks of X one of which is that...
那些大谈特谈X的好处的人通常忽略X的缺点，其中一个就是...
原创例句：
Those who talk up the benefits of the Internet, though, often neglect to mention the drawbacks of the ubiquitous network connection one of which is that our private information is highly likely to be compromised by data breach caused by malicious hackers.
想必大家也都看到新闻了哈，最近老美不是一直在埋怨，中国的黑客入侵他们的各种系统，获取各种数据，可是都只是停留在声讨，因为他们貌似并没有啥证据。
翻译练习：
那些大谈特谈城市扩张的好处的人通常忽略混乱的城市化模式的弊端，其中一个就是作为资产拥有者的城市中产阶级和外来移民构成的底层阶级之间的日益增大的差距可能会导致很多社会问题。
欢迎大家点击“阅读原文”完成句子练习，只要按要求完成了就可以获得批改并收到参考答案哈!!!
重点表达
swap：交换、互换
gadget：小器具、小装置
harness：利用
replenish：补充、重新装满
slash：大大降低
manoeuvre：调动、机动
decarbonise：去碳
fleabite：少量的花费
reminiscent：使...想起过去
resonate：产生共鸣
induction：感应现象
electric current：电流
alternating current：交流电
wireless charging：无线充电
make a huge difference to：使产生很大的不同
coiled wire：线圈
data cord：数据线
power cord：电源线
electrical charge：电荷
medical device：医疗设备
heart pump：心脏泵
brain monitor：大脑监测器
electric toothbrush：电动牙刷
electric car：电动汽车
industry standard：工业标准
oscillating magnetic field：震荡磁场
electric-vehicle battery：电动汽车电池
top up：充
inject into：射人
hover over：盘旋
recharging station：充电站
wireless power-transmission：无线电能传输
open a market for：打开市场
are keen to：热衷于
plug them into an electrical socket：插入电源插座
establish an awkward physical connection with a plug：和插座建立尴尬的链接