Qualcomm and Samsung are joining forces to accelerate the development of wireless charging technologies.

The mobile industry heavyweights have teamed up to form the Alliance for Wireless Power, or A4WP. The alliance will work on a new power transfer technology that should enable us to charge phones, tablets and whatnot wirelessly.

The A4WP spec aims to extend wireless changing beyond mats to embedded charging surfaces in furniture and cars, which sounds very interesting indeed.

There are only a handful of products which support wireless charging, but this should all change at a very fast pace indeed. Analysts believe shipments of wireless power enabled devices will hit 100 million by 2015.

More here.