Oh, Intel. First, you have a partner release a Gingerbread Intel-powered phone a solid 8 months after Android 4.0 has been out. Now, you demo a brand-new wireless charging system using an Intel Ultrabook and a Samsung Fascinate (for our foreign readers, this is a US-only Galaxy S variant). Check out the video from TheVerge, below:

[EMBED_YT]https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=WbV-dR4zz9E#!

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Not only are they using a truly ancient Android phone to demo this new technology, they've actually made it uglier, too, with an odd "hump" of sorts maligning the left-hand-side of the device. Merits of the concept aside, you've got to admit, Intel isn't exactly winning a lot of points on first impressions here.

But in all fairness, the idea itself is cool. Bumping your smartphone up against your laptop (which many of us, myself included, already do by habit) to charge it is ridiculously simple and intuitive. I'd definitely prefer this over some inductive-pad system that takes up space on my desk, because really, is there something so horridly wrong about using a wall charger with, gasp, a cable when you're at home?

This, on the other hand, solves a real problem - pulling out a USB cable to charge your smartphone while you're on a laptop is cumbersome, annoying, and makes you look a bit nerdy if I do say so myself. If you have a laptop with decent battery life, this can allow you to be truly wire-free on the go. If they can integrate this into the internal guts of smartphones without the awkward hump, I'm definitely on board.

Of course, like many technologies demoed by companies at trade shows, this could just end up as "Abandoned Tech Demo #8795274823" in Intel's warehouse of broken dreams. Still, here's to hoping something comes of this experiment.

TheVerge