Like we had heard, Dell made the Latitude Z for the suit wearing, briefcase toting, conference room type. Being .57 inches thin and weighing 4.5 pounds may make it the lightest and thinnest 16-inch notebook ever, but it's still a full-sized machine. The design itself is a lot nicer than the typical business notebook, though. The soft-touch lid feels nice and the back of the magnesium alloy chassis has angled chrome plated hinges.

Similar to the Palm Pre but on a much bigger scale, the Z has power coils built in to the base of the notebook and so it charges wirelessly, through a magnetic inductive stand that's an extra $200. Supposedly, it takes the same amount of time to recharge as a normal notebook power cord.

The love for no cords doesn't stop there. You can also buy the $200 wireless dock and hook up all your peripherals (printer, monitor, mouse, etc.) to it rather than to the computer. It then communicates with the notebook itself which has Ultra Wide Band technology built-in so there is no need to add an extra dongle.

Beyond the love of wireless, there are a few other things that make the Z different from your average laptop. It has Dell's Latitude-On which gives you access to email and a browser before actually booting into Windows. Lots of laptops have this pre-boot environment now (like the HP Envy 13 and Lenovo S10-2), however, the difference here is that it runs on a different processor. In addition to a Intel ULV processor, the Z has an ARM processor which will boot up the instant-on mode faster and increase battery life. Frankly, I don't always see the point in these pre-boot environments when you can just wait a few extra minutes to get into Windows but my guess is some find it useful.

And because it seems like every notebook has to have some form of touch capability now, the Z has what Dell calls EdgeTouch. The right screen bezel has an LCD sensor that when tapped brings up shortcuts. Not sure how much the average person will end up using this thing, but it is a neat trick.

That guy that tripped over the wires probably has some sort of unfortunate looking scar, but at least we have the Latitude Z. Sure it will cost you a pretty penny when you add in all the wireless doodads, but it is chock-full of some kick ass tech. [Dell]

The lamp is intended to spend most of its time on a wireless charging stand, which not unlike the Palm's Touchstone or, more precisely, Sanyo's wireless eneloop Wiimote charger. There, it can be switched between the brighter white light mode and a low-draw blue, or "Healing Light," mode. The stand feeds power into the unit's two AA batteries, which power the lamp when it strays from home. Sanyo's press release says it'll switch modes when it's turned horizontal, mentioning that there's some kind of accelerometer, although it seems like a simple activate-on-disconnect system would work just fine.

At first, I had trouble imagining too many uses for a lamp/torch hybrid, but then it hit me: midnight pooping. For that, this lamp is genius. No price or domestic availability info is available yet; Japan will see a launch on September 11th. [Akihabara News]

Intel's work builds on the progress MIT has made with transmitting power through resonant magnetic fields. But where the MIT team, led by Marin Soljacic, has only achieved 50% efficiency over a range of a few feet, Intel is said to have recently zapped up to 60 watts over the same distance at an efficiency of 75%, which is quite a leap forward.

Intel also is extrapolating potential uses of the tech for supercapicitors—basically giant electrochemical "batteries" that recharge almost instantly compared to Li-ion and store over a thousand times more juice than standard capacitors.

Sounds good. We'll keep you posted on any developments from IDF today. UPDATE: Intel didn't tell us anything we didn't know already in their IDF demo today, which lit a lightbulb from a distance of a few feet by passing electricity between two coils. We were assured, though, that being in the middle of the electrically charge resonant magnetic field doesn't hurt one bit.

[New York Times, Photos: John Herrman]

The charging times are said to be exactly the same as that from a standard AC outlet, as the Splashpower bay and dongle utilizes the inbuilt charging circuitry to power your low-juiced appliance by conduction. With pricing aimed at $100 for the base station, and $20 for each additional dongle, competition with the folks at WildCharge ($59.99 base / $34.99 adapters), is going to be fierce. Nevertheless, Splashpower's in with a chance. For one, the dongles look a little more workable than WildCharge's adapters, even if the bases are not as cool. Expect the Splashpower to drop in Q3 '08. [Splashpower]

The design above isn't the final production model, but the idea should be the same. Instead of carrying around your PDA, phone, Skype phone, and iPod charger, you could just have this. The company plans to have a product out in Q1 2007. – Jason Chen

Product Page [Wild Charge via Crunchgear]