Sean McCarthy, CEO of Steorn, with a test rig during development. This is not part of the design to be tested by the scientific jury.
Source: Steorn.com
As Monday progressed, more news organizations came out with stories about the Steorn challenge:
Wired News
“Ultimately the aim is so large, that the people involved, and the process that goes on, has to be purer than pure,” McCarthy says.PESN.com
“We’ve tested scalability, from micro—the size of a fingernail—to a macro size,” said McCarthy.
Meanwhile, someone on the company’s forum is claiming that it’s just a big ad campaign for Lost.
Comments
4 responses to “More news around the Steorn energy controversy”
Humeid
Why pick on this story specifically? Many unknown firms have made many bizarre & sci-fi like claims in all fields and directions but they barely make headlines beside the controversy they create by their initial claims.
Especially now a days; setting up a serious-looking website, model out a “machine” that does something extraordinary, dodge up some serious white-papers, shoot some real-feel videos and create controversy by publicly challenging world “scientists” is not a hard Endeavour!
Even Magazines such as Wired and Popular Science tend to report stuff that look nice in editorials but didn’t even see itself beyond conceptualization sketch boards rather than lab benches! Betting that one day they can claim that “We told this will happen XX years ago” with a snap shot of the issue.
Don’t be surprised if they list 360east coverage as part of the credibility of the overall media coverage they’re getting…
I believe there are proper and established processes and procedures in which new inventions and scientific findings (especially ones with lucrative commercial potential) are registered and exploited without the hype. I’m not sure if the case of the English inventor-cum-entrepreneur James Dyson fits as an example.
I was also starting to wonder if this was a hoax – note the company’s website news section – all entries have the same date. But a check of the “wayback machine” shows they have been around longer than the show Lost.
http://web.archive.org/web/20021209100220/http://www.steorn.com/index.html
check SteornPower for new news about the steorn company
Read their site a bit more and you’ll soon see how implausible is the thesis that this is sham company for a Microsoft add. They have been working with the Bolton Street (Dublin) branch of DIT (Dublin Inst Techn.) for years, sponsoring prizes for students. I used to visit the Bolton Street institute – it’s one of the main academic institutes in Dublin. I know one of the physics staff and am checking with him about Steorn – he hasn’t answered my e-mail yet – he’s always slow in comms… But I have a good feeling about this one, as I know about their home turf and they seem the goods.