Belkin's Pitstop charging table

Belkin's Pitstop charging table lets you ditch those cables. By simply placing your rechargeable item on the table top, your electronic do dad gets a much needed top off - sans wires and wall warts. How is this black magic accomplished you ask? Well by simple induction I respond, knowingly. And there is the 10 thousand dollar word - induction. Anyone familiar with electronics (ahem, like yours truly) knows that if you cause current to flow through a conductor, you can start another current flowing in any conductor that lies near the original conductor. Now to totally confuse, you don't need an original conductor or original current...you can use say a - magnet. That's how electric motors and generators do their trick. But...back to the Pitstop - Think of how radio works - you have someone playing music at a station, someone takes that sound and with the help of wires and magnets, puts that signal on the station's long wire...better known as an antenna. Now in your car, you have another long wire, (the car antenna) and through it you receive the signal. Now what really happens is that the station induces a current on the car antenna that the radio uses to make audio signals. So how does this apply to your current starved mp3 player? well, say it has a very long wire wrapped up inside the case instead of a charger? You lay it on the Pitstop's table top that is acting something like a radio station. By being close by, your player can pick up the signal that the Pitstop is putting out. Your player turns that signal into simple current that can recharge the batteries in the player. This technology is far from new. Ever since there has been a transformer (wall wart or like that big round thing hanging off the telephone pole that has wires running from it to your house) there has been induction. This is just a very clever utilization. No wires to chafe, no transformer to heat up or short out and no plugs to wear out.