Whole ad campaigns have been done to shame consumers into unplugging their device chargers when they are not actually charging, because they use tiny amounts of electricty then. Whole products have been developed with chargers that are more effecient in use, and shut themselves off when not charging.

Now we get what is probably the least effecient method of connecting a battery device to the mains on today's market, and we see it as some kind of step forward. Do these guys live in a vacuum?

Simply, the rate amount of energy transfer is severely limited. Unless you have tightly coupled coils in both devices the induction effect is very poor.

Sure this may work but look at days rather than minutes to get a full charge.

And if you do put a big enough coil in the target device to get reasonable charging rates it will add significant weight to the device.

Yep, definitely other identical products in the past:

http://www.textually.org/textually/archives/2006/12/014309.htm

One has to wonder why it hasn't taken off, and why this one is (presumably) any better.

You mean something like the one from Britain back in 2003?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/2861987.stm

It's a silly idea anyway; these days we're trying to reduce energy consumption, not waste it on something that can be far more easily done with a cable.

You're probably going to reply that you need different cables; at which point I suggest you remember that this will only work if there's an agreed and widely used standard. If we had an agreed and widely used wire standard we'd only need one charger now anyway.