Technological progress or a waste of energy?

I see from Raw Story that MIT scientists have developed a way to recharge batteries wirelessly at a distance from the power source of up to seven or eight feet. The process uses electromagnetic resonance. It is thought that this may make the need to re-charge batteries in lap tops, cell phones, Blackberries, and the like, obsolete.

Pardon me if I'm somewhat skeptical, but I suspect this method is a horribly inefficient use of energy. My guess is that to get enough energy to the receiver, you have to supply many times that much energy to the transmitter. We already have enough energy problems without converting all these small energy consumers into large ones.