The device in the article was implanted over 10 years ago.
I'm sure there are research teams looking into the wireless methods, in 2002 it just wasn't possible yet. Magnetic induction has it's own challenges, especially when being used with a device inside living tissue.
Wireless power for medical devices has only been practical for the past couple years, and even now the technology is in it's infancy.
This would be prohibitively large to implant in the brain.
Betavoltaics could provide a novel power source, I believe they are used in some pacemakers. RF would be a problem because cancer.
People forget that magnetic induction can also be used for data and power transfer simultaneously, I believe they use this approach with some cochlear implants.
electromagnetic radiation(photons) is VERY VERY VERY different from magnetic fields(fucking magnets how do they work?) the driving physics behind magnetic induction.
Yes RF is non-ionizing, but research linking it to cancer is generally inconclusive. So I concede I was too bold saying RF causes cancer, but right now we just don't know.
It would probably be possible to power it with RF power harvesting and multiplex the MEA with a MSP430. Now that would be a fun research project.
In order to transfer power using magnetic induction you need a _variable in time_ magnetic field, which causes a variable in time electric field to appear. That seems to me to be exactly the description of an electromagnetic wave.
