IEEE Spectrum February, 2007 - 3

FORUM
"Iwasamused
bythemovie
companies'stated
approachwhen
choosingstandards
andtechnology"
-DennisNicoll
RANGE OF VALUES

While reading "Bits on the
Big Screen" [December], I
was amused by the movie
companies' stated approach
when choosing standards and
technology, which is: "using a
minimum of protected intel-
lectual property."
I t h o u g ht t h e s e we re
the people who so strongly
believe in the overwhelming
economic and societal bene-
fits of protected intellectual
property. I guess they believe
in that protection mainly
when the property in ques-
tion is theirs.

Dennis Nicoll
IEEE Member
Vancouver, B.C., Canada

EVs: COSTLY, DIRTY?

In a sidebar to your January
article ["Winner: The Omni-
vorous Engine"], you quote an
"expert" saying that "Electric
cars can already run on about
one-third of the cost of gaso-
line and with much less pol-
lution." I'm amazed that your
supposedly authoritative pro-
fessional publication would
cite such a fallacious claim! I
don't know who your expert
(T.J. Rodgers) is, or what his
expert qualifications are, but
even a little homework would
reveal the flaws in this state-
ment! I would like to see what
kind of economic analysis
it would take to support the



notion that electricity costs
one-third as much as gaso-
line! And no less than the
Ca l i forn ia A i r Resou rces
Board staff have publicly con-
cluded that today's gasoline
vehicles have emissions equal
to those associated with an
electric vehicle.
Tom McDonald
Via the Internet
The editor responds: Rodgers did
not, in fact, say that "electric-
ity costs one-third as much as
gasoline." Furthermore, many
studies and reports can be
found to support what Rodgers
did actually say, which is that
electric vehicles cost one-third
as much to operate as gasoline-
powered cars. For example, a
calculating program at http://
w w w.ccds.charlotte.nc.us/
~ja rrett / EV/cost.php i nd i-
cates that for typical param-
eters, Rodgers's statement is
quite reasonable. The idea that,
overall, electric vehicles are
just as polluting as gasoline
vehicles finds little support in
the literature. See, for exam-
ple, http://www.electroauto.
com/info/poll.shtml.

HOW WAS HIS
SHORTHAND?

In your December 2006 IEEE
Spectrum Online article "The
First Electronic Device, Ever?"
[http://www.spectrum.ieee.
org/dec06/4792], the author

IEEE Spectrum | February 2007 | NA

refers to Joh n Howel l as
Edison's secretary. Howell was
not a secretary. He was one of
Edison's key engineers on the
incandescent lamp project.
And he was the only engineer
who successfully made by
hand the tar-putty lamps to
Edison's patent specifications
during the 1890 patent trial.
Thus he was the key witness at
the trial, as well as the holder
of many electrical patents.
After 50 years with Edison,
John retired as chief engineer
of the Edison Lamp Works of
General Electric. He was also
awarded the 1924 Edison Medal
(now sponsored by the IEEE)
for his "contributions toward
the development of the incan-
descent lamp." Some secretary,
eh? You suppose he knew how
to take dictation?
John T. Starr
Glendale, Calif.

coil that inductively scav-
enges, from a nearby RFID
reader, the energy the tag
needs to transmit its data. At
the European company ABB,
we have developed an induc-
tion-based wireless power-
transmitting scheme called
WISA-Power. It is designed
mainly to power sensors and
actuators in moving systems
like robots, reducing the need
for cables and wires, which
are a common cause of fail-
ures. Using multiple mod-
ules, we have sent hundreds
of milliwatts through the air.
By the way, MIT's power-
transmitting system, which
you described in your arti-
cle, seems to incorporate a
number of our ideas. ABB has
openly discussed its develop-
ments with MIT for more than
six years.
Guntram Scheible
Heidelberg, Germany

CORRECTIONS

In the December issue, in "Bits
on the Big Screen," the size of
the digital files "used in movie
production to capture, store,
and edit movies" should have
been 6000 gigabytes. In "Doing
Well by Doing Good," the cor-
rect name of the San Diego
company mentioned in the
article is Quantum Magnetics,
not Quantum Mechanics.
In "Loser: Corn-o-copia"
[ January], Doug Koplow's
name was misspelled.

POST-TESLA POWER

The concept in "Air Power" in
November's IEEE Spectrum
Online [http://www.spectrum.
ie e e .org/nov06/4735] is an
old, but attractive idea. More
than a century ago, Nicola Tesla
dreamed of sending mega-
watts through the air, with-
out wires. The idea is much
more realistic for milliwatt
quantities of power, as dem-
onstrated by any radio fre-
quency identification (RFID)
system. R FID tags have a

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www.spectrum.ieee.org
http://http:// http://www.ccds.charlotte.nc.us/ http://www.e.org/nov06/4735 http://www.electroauto http://www.spectrum http://www.ieee.org http://www.spectrum.ieee http://www.spectrum.ieee.org
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Spectrum February, 2007
