Light-up cereal boxes powered by shelves on display at CES
January 11, 2011 by Lisa Zyga 
On display at CES, boxes of Honey Nut Cheerios light up in various places, powered by the shelves they sit on. Image credit: Oh Gizmo.
(PhysOrg.com) -- Cereal boxes with blinking lights may or may not be the next big thing, but the underlying technology could prove useful for many other potential applications. At the recent CES in Las Vegas, Fulton Innovation displayed its light-up boxes of General Mills' Honey Nut Cheerios and Trix cereals, which are wirelessly charged by the shelves they sit on.
The technology behind the luminous cereal boxes is called eCoupled, which uses inductive coupling to transform tabletops, shelves, and even parking lots into power sources for battery-powered devices. The surfaces are equipped with a primary transmission coil, which can provide power for multiple devices equipped with secondary receiving coils.
The devices go beyond cereal boxes to kitchen blenders, smartphones, ebook readers, laptops, electric vehicles, and more. Instead of plugging these devices into an electric outlet, you could power them by simply placing them on a surface equipped with the eCoupled technology (or in the case of the electric vehicles, driving onto an eCoupled parking lot).
At CES, Fulton Innovation demonstrated how the technology could be used to make a “self-heating” can of soup. The soup can had a heating coil built into the packaging. When placed on an eCoupled surface and an “on” button is pressed on the packaging, the soup would heat up and a light would turn on when it was ready.
The technology could also be used to communicate data from various devices to a smartphone. For example, a frying pan could alert you when your food is simmering. Or when you’re at the grocery store, you could use your phone to check how much milk you have left in your refrigerator.
Even if the light-up cereal boxes never take off, the same technology could be attractive for manufacturers as a way to wirelessly track quantities and expiration dates, or for stores to wirelessly manage inventory. Also, battery-powered toys could be charged by the shelves they sit on, so their power would never run down.
As demonstrated at CES, Fulton Innovation says that the technology is all there. The challenge now is to standardize the technology, and then sell it to stores. In 2008, Fulton Innovation helped found the Wireless Power Consortium, which is developing the international standard for wireless charging, called Qi (pronounced “chee”). With this universal standard in place, the company hopes that commercialization will soon follow.
More information: Fulton Innovation and ecoupled.com
via: Pocket-lint
© 2010 PhysOrg.com
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Jan 11, 2011
Rank: 5 / 5 (8)
What next? Tentacles grabbing my arm? Horror!
And how long can I survive if every surface in my home is converted into an inductive recharger strong enough to power a blender or laptop? Gotta be much worse than living under a power line.
Jan 11, 2011
Rank: 5 / 5 (3)
And just what we need, more chems in our packaging..
Jan 11, 2011
Rank: 5 / 5 (8)
As if we aren't already wasting enough stuff in the modern capitalistic, consumeristic society, now we'll be throwing away electronic devices even more and more.
Jan 11, 2011
Rank: 5 / 5 (6)
"Buy Me! I'm healthy!"
"If you love your children you will buy me!"
"Tell your mother to buy me!"
"Hey, little boy, let's be friends. I'd sure like it if you could convince your parents to buy me! Thanks. I love you!"
Jan 11, 2011
Rank: 5 / 5 (1)
Jan 11, 2011
Rank: 5 / 5 (5)
A good example is a toothbrush. Compare the tooth brushes on the shelves today to the ones available 20 years ago. This is a disposable item. Yet instead of becoming more environmentally responsible by reducing and simplifying their content, they have become ever more complex with more plastic and more kinds of plastic.
If that new cereal packaging gets to market I hope the cereal has a sugar content of at least 90% so it will slowly kill anyone who buys it. There shouldn't even be ink on packaging, let alone lights.
Jan 11, 2011
Rank: 3.8 / 5 (5)
Either don't buy the fattening-tooth-rot in blinky light boxes
or
write to the company about how much you love the fattening-tooth-rot but you oppose the new packing for {reasons stated by others here}
Now of course, those here who are for minimal packaging - if you buy ready-to-eat cereal, do you buy the boxed or do you buy the ones they sell in bags?
Jan 11, 2011
Rank: 5 / 5 (3)
But yeah, this culture is pretty weird. We seem to have a requirement to be 'entertained' by our food and commestibles.
It's food... Just eat it
Jan 11, 2011
Rank: 3.7 / 5 (3)
Actually, we don't.
They've just been doing it to us for our entire lives. "We" had nothing to do with the propaganda that has been an is being fed to us. It's just we don't have any choice in the matter anyway, since almost everything available for purchase fits into this category.
Every product is propagandized and hyped through the roof. Everything claims to be the best, etc.
As I've said elswhere, our civilization is based on lying and screwing over one another as much as possible.
Jan 11, 2011
Rank: 1.5 / 5 (2)
Jan 11, 2011
Rank: 5 / 5 (2)
Yes that will make the food extra tasty. And when recycled, I'm sure it will rub right off before its turned into mulch ..
Jan 12, 2011
Rank: not rated yet
Jan 12, 2011
Rank: 5 / 5 (3)
Also, think about how much ink we waste by colorizing all these disposable products. Thats always fascinated me.
Jan 12, 2011
Rank: not rated yet
Jan 12, 2011
Rank: not rated yet
You are completely clueless. We have the problems with waste now because IT IS LEFT UP TO THE CONSUMERS and free market principles.
Jan 12, 2011
Rank: 5 / 5 (2)
Walmart has it right.Their generic brand food called Great Value uses nothing but a plain white box to help bring cost down,but I can guarantee the food is directly comparable to if not better for way cheaper.
Jan 15, 2011
Rank: not rated yet
There are a lot of "cheap" brands which actually end up being better than the "big name" company.
Jan 16, 2011
Rank: not rated yet
Jan 17, 2011
Rank: not rated yet
When that happens I'll start to do my shopping online.
Jan 17, 2011
Rank: not rated yet
Jan 17, 2011
Rank: not rated yet
Maybe that's the secret. Instead of making the packaging so bland because it is going to be thrown away, make it something we can use so that it doesn't get thrown away. Make the boxes out of solar cell panels, and have it modular so that the more cereal you buy, the more solar panel boxes you can hook up on your roof. Or start installing those tubes like at the bank, so when you buy groceries, they can be stored in re-usable cannisters which you send back to the store through the tube when it's empty.