What is wrong with what Steorn is doing?

[Horatius]

Was that really a quote from me? The link just goes to my last post.....

 

[balrog666]

Was that really a quote from me? The link just goes to my last post.....

Oops, sorry, that was from the Steorn interview ...

 

[circuit_bent]

Another highly disturbing component of the Steorn debacle is that Sean claimed on his website to the believers that he was already in the process of rolling out the technology to impoverished African communities to pump water and power homes etc..

His followers were treating him like a hero. What horrible, cynical manipulation. To garner support for something with fictionalized humanitarian acts.

 

[Foolmewunz]

Another highly disturbing component of the Steorn debacle is that Sean claimed on his website to the believers that he was already in the process of rolling out the technology to impoverished African communities to pump water and power homes etc..

His followers were treating him like a hero. What horrible, cynical manipulation. To garner support for something with fictionalized humanitarian acts.

Well, in all fairness, he hadn't realized that Africa was hot.

 

[Michael C]

Steorn is still managing to convince people to invest considerable sums of money: three private investors have recently injected €1.1 million into the company.

 

[BillyJoe]

it had almost €6.4 million in cash on its balance sheet at the end of the year, up from €1.6 million a year earlier. It also had ‘‘short-term investments’’ valued at €1.8million,up from just under €1 million at the end of 2006.

6.4 +1.8 + 1.1 = 9.3 million
They obviously do not need The JREF Million Dollar Prize.

‘‘The company is dependent upon the successful outcome of its prototype development to generate future income,” the auditors’ report in the accounts stated.”

They don't need that either.

 

[Snadert]

Sean:"One of our goals is to raise Africa out of poverty; unfortunately the bearings gave away. Our engineers are fixing that. Coffee anyone?"

 

[Mojo]

Steorn is still managing to convince people to invest considerable sums of money: three private investors have recently injected €1.1 million into the company.

Any sign of the jury's "validation" yet?

 

[Snadert]

Any sign of the jury's "validation" yet?

Haven't heard of them since. But, meanwhile in Eire...
Even the Irish president is involved.

 

[balrog666]

The company had an accumulated loss of €5.9 million at the end of last year, up from €2.8 million a year earlier, according to accounts filed recently.

Spending €3.1 million per year?! Wow, that failed experiment cost more than we ever knew!

OTOH, how much is the head PR flack/salesman/conman at Steorn making per year?

 

[a_unique_person]

Shouldn't we move this thread to AAH?

 

[Mojo]

Any sign of the results of the "validation" that Steorn were expecting by the end of 2007?

 

[CFLarsen]

Any sign of the results of the "validation" that Steorn were expecting by the end of 2007?

For large values of "2007".

 

[BillyJoe]

....just another few rocks on the road to success, I'm sure.

 

[zooterkin]

So... are we at the end of 2007 yet?

Have Steorn quietly gone under, or is there still life in the scam?

 

[balrog666]

So... are we at the end of 2007 yet?

Have Steorn quietly gone under, or is there still life in the scam?

I have to agree with CFL on this one: "For large values of "2007"."

 

[Foolmewunz]

So... are we at the end of 2007 yet?

Have Steorn quietly gone under, or is there still life in the scam?

Well, they seem to be still alive, but the Spindizzy is moribund. There are no news releases on their website since October (when some dignitary visited them), nothing on the Orbo, and much speculaiton that the "jury" never actually existed in the first place.

Their forum has turned into an altenergy discussion group, with the two most popular threads being "Last Poster Wins" and "Count to a Million".

As long as there's some investment money out there, McCarthy will keep it alive, but the dismal and stupid failure of the Kinetica demo was the last nail in their coffin. (Although, as McCarthy noted, Randi's account of their death is slightly exaggerated.)

 

[jimbob]

Maybe if you use trivalent logic as Bubblefish wanted, it 2q asohfaaoasg avg ;as dhgftr5QW4 A 4wt3 wap

sorry brain melted...

 

[BillC]

The European Patent Office issued them with a patent on 21st February 2008 for a torque measurement device. This is indicative of earlier, rather than recent, activity by Steorn: the patent was applied for in August 2006.

 

[Horatius]

The European Patent Office issued them with a patent on 21st February 2008 for a torque measurement device. This is indicative of earlier, rather than recent, activity by Steorn: the patent was applied for in August 2006.

Actually, that document, WO2008020424 is a published international patent application under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT). It's the first stage to multiple patent applications in several countries, but is still several stages away from being patented anywhere.

I haven't looked at it in any detail, so can't comment on the technology, but I wanted to clarify its status.