Talk:Steorn

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Publicity stunt

I think the Publicity Stunt section needs to be looked, like does "Steorn" being an anagram of "no rest" have anything to do with Xbox? -Fineric 06:13, 19 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Clearly it's not a publicity stunt for the Xbox, as it was released nearly a year ago. I do so despise the fact that this hoax has made it to the Yahoo news frontpage this morning. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.250.176.89 (talk • contribs) 06:50, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

People, could you please sign your talk page posts? ~ Jeff Q (talk) 06:53, 19 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've attempted to provide a non-biased source for some of this information. However, the "Publicity stunt" section currently reads like blatant original research. (It's always a bad sign when something starts out "It is believed by some". Whoever "some" is, he talks to everyone, but no one seems to know his name. ☺) I've added an {{unreferenced}} tag, but I wouldn't be surprised if someone just removes the whole section as OR. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 06:55, 19 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wasn't the Xbox 360 out last Christmas? Selling on ebay for high$$$. That part needs to be removed 69.149.62.15 07:00, 19 August 2006 (UTC) VE[reply]

That whole section reads like bull. The company has a history back to 2000 and never once XBox related. Also they are a year away from releasing this so called technology. (ref: Promotional Video) - Archeus.

Agreed. --seifip 09:07, 19 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I thought this is an Encyclopedia, it should be neutral and not contain opinions about "free energy".

Scam

I don't think it has anything to do with XBox at all. It is false informtion regarding breaking the laws of Thermodynamics. I suspect it is a way to harvest email addresses or try and remove investors from thier money. - Archeus 194.46.236.89 08:40, 19 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A full page ad in The Economist is likely about $100,000. Would that make sense economically as a email harvesting scheme?
- Who says it's to do with e-mail? If anything they want more high dollar investors to take advantage of.--24.250.176.89 09:49, 19 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There is certainly a chance that the company will solicit funds in the future, but at this time I don't see that as a possibility. And who would invest before the panel of scientists gave some conclusions?

- 75.2.221.225 194.46.236.89 08:40, 19 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A full page advert price I have seen is about 10,000 (unconfirmed). They have already gotten an investor who has funded them 3 million (see thepost.ie ). Incidently according to thier video interview they have already asked scientists to review the data. They said that 90% refused while 10% checked it and said it was working but refused to be named.

Needs it own section on the main part. Try to keep NPOV. - Archeus 194.46.236.89 08:40, 19 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've sent a request to BBC News to look into this story, as I don't trust the credulous American press to look through the right end of a microscope, let alone evaluate press releases about seemingly impossible physics feats. (These are the same folks that presented a blob of chocolate that at best resembles a bird as a miraculous mini-statue of the Virgin Mary.) I have no idea how likely BBC is to pick up on this request, but it is in their neck of the woods, so to speak. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 20:20, 19 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Research

I added the informational video on google as they make a lot of thier claims in that video. --Dark archeus 14:31, 19 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The only real connection to the XBOX I could find is that xBoxNews posted the story.

Here is the information I found.

They have claimed they have broken the laws of thermodynamics.

Founded in 2000 this is thier initial description (taken from google cache of Steorn.com not Steorn.net).

"Steorn is a leading Intellectual Property (IP) research and development organisation. Founded in 2000, Steorn has developed cutting-edge technology solutions in areas such as optical disc analysis and plastic card fraud prevention. The company is currently engaged in the development of its own proprietary battery substitution technology."

According to the ThePost.ie ( http://archives.tcm.ie/businesspost/2006/05/21/story14326.asp ) they are building kinetic batteries and appears to be a dot.com type business (made websites for customers).

They have a patent on some kind of magnetic device but it is not the perpetual motion machine. That they are trying to patent by patenting the individual parts ( http://www.steorn.net/forum/comments.php?DiscussionID=41&page=1#Item_0 )

- Archeus (dont have login here).

Here is another link, sounds like the credit card fraud prevention tech: Commercial anticounterfeit products using machine vision Patrick J. Smith, Phelim O'Doherty, Carlos Luna, Fraudhalt Ltd. (Ireland); Sean McCarthy, Steorn Ltd. (Ireland); pages 237-243. http://www.imaging.org/store/physpub.cfm?seriesid=24&pubid=622 69.149.62.15 07:08, 19 August 2006 (UTC)VE[reply]

Abstract of that is here.. http://www.imaging.org/store/epub.cfm?abstrid=31863 - Archeus.

steorn.com registered in 2000 according to Network Solutions whois search. Sean McCarthy is the administrative contact. There is an address listed for him.69.149.62.15 07:29, 19 August 2006 (UTC)VE[reply]

I agree with Archeus above, this is not a perpetual motion machine. If you read the patent it is clear that they do input a little energy to get much more energy as output. Perpetual motion would not use any energy at all. Here's an excerpt from their patent description:

Electromagnets are commonly used where there is a requirement for a magnetic field to be actuated (turned on/off) [...] The use of electromagnets to effectuate magnetic fields suffers from one major drawback - the electromagnet requires a relatively large amount of electrical energy to operate.
[They have deveoped] A low energy magnet actuator [that] allows magnetic fields to be turned on and off using a small amount of energy.

Clearly, not perpetual motion. I suggest the reference to perpetual motion be removed. --Orangehues 09:49, 20 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

NPOV

The NPOV policy means Wikipedia can't take a position as to whether this is genuine, mistaken, a hoax, or whatever. We should only report the opinions of others. We've got a cite for Steorn's claims, now we need cites for criticism and/or support. -- The Anome 10:10, 19 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please don't say that Steorn is a scam; that's against Wikipedia's original research and verifiability policies; instead, please find someone else who is saying that, and report their views. -- The Anome 10:40, 19 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_a_publisher_of_original_thought

News reports. Wikipedia should not offer first-hand news reports on breaking stories. Wikipedia is not a primary source. However, our sister project Wikinews does exactly that, and is intended to be a primary source. Wikipedia does have many encyclopedia articles on topics of historical significance that are currently in the news, and can be significantly more up-to-date than most reference sources since we can incorporate new developments and facts as they are made known. See current events for examples.

=== Wikipedia is not a soapbox ===

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Jason Hommel 11:24, 19 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Company logo for Infobox

Anyone care to get the image for the infobox of the company's logo. I really don't know how to go about getting it. Niall123 12:04, 19 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Smartaalec 02:38, 20 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Age?

Steorn.com goes back to 2000. If you go to that web address it now routes you to steorn.net. I was actually able to find details of thier companies address at 2000, but didn't seem any point to add it to the story. --Dark archeus 07:12, 20 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This company claims, and this wikipedia article asserts, that the company is six years old. I would like some proof of that fact if wikipedia is going to continue to claim that. Their web page says "© 2000–2006 Steorn Ltd" but their press releases section goes back no further than August 17. Looking on google I see pretty much NOTHING in the way of news articles before 2006 ANYWHERE which give any indication this company really existed before this year. There appear to have been a couple companies named "Steorn" in Dublin at various times but I don't see any signs any of them were in the business of preventing "credit card fraud", as steorn.net's history page claims.

Goofy perpetual motion / infinite bandwidth / infinite energy scams crop up all the time, but I don't think I've ever seen one appear to be this well-funded and well-connected out of the gate. I'm frankly seeing a lot of attractiveness in the theory that this is an ARG rabbithole, the logo similarity to the XBox 360 logo is not coincidental, and wikipedia is being trolled.

If this *is* a real company, of course, Wikipedia's readers would be well served if we could post proof of such, or at least ANY indication or citations on what this supposed technology company was doing before 2006. That shouldn't be too hard; between this slick promotional video and the cost of these ads they're buying they seem to have rather a lot of money. Surely they got it from somewhere?

Awk 20:02, 19 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

So someone has pointed out Steorn.com has archive.org records going back to 2001, and looking I find the person listed as CEO in the video (Sean McCarthy) is listed on the early archive.org pages as CEO as well. I think there's still valid question as to whether it's the same company though, and would still like to see some evidence that anything exists of this company at all except press releases-- especially since there is no section in the current article for questions about whether this is a publicity stunt.

Awk 20:51, 19 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A google search will show you that there have been news articles from 2002 talking about Steorn's work with batteries, so I doubt the age is that much of a problem here. Smartaalec 02:46, 20 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Technical details

Does anyone have any technical details? Has anyone hear given them their email? Paul Studier 02:16, 20 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The company hasn't released any technical details. On thier forums there is a person claiming to be from a scientist group in the UK that knew of the tests. They claim there was an anolmaly in the testing. But nothing has been proven to the public yet. --Dark archeus 07:17, 20 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Rummaging around. This is alledgely the actual device. http://www.steorn.net/images/sean5_small.jpg --Dark archeus 08:16, 20 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Current Event?

With all the media attention it has been getting, is it almost worth giving this article a "current event" tag, or do you think that the process will go on for long enough (or not result at all) and this short media attention will just die down... Smartaalec 03:00, 20 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Descriptors/Deletion

I believe this article no longer qualifies as either a "Organization-related" stub or an "Energy" stub and those should be removed. Additionally I think the overwhelming amount of Keeps on the deletion page means it no longer qualifies as a candidate and the box should therefore be removed. Imlepid 05:45, 20 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that we're out of stub territory, so I've removed the tags. (Whether the content is sufficiently broad, accurate, or properly sourced is a different issue.) Only an admin should remove the AfD tag, as part of the closure of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Steorn. We'll just have to wait for this to happen. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 06:54, 20 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The deletion process states that the deletion tag remains there for 5 days, and a decision is made at the end - we still have to bare with it for three or four days guys... Smartaalec 10:04, 20 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, an admin may decide that such an overwhelming "keep" vote would warrant a "speedy keep". But they have to make the call, and I suspect it's usually only done if the nomination was in bad faith. (The improbability of the company's claims, combined with the initial 2 obscure news reports and the potential for a staged commercial promotion, supports a good-faith nomination, regardless of the outcome.) ~ Jeff Q (talk) 12:20, 20 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The Economist

Has anyone actually seen this advert in the Economist or know when it is air to run? The only reference I can see to this happening is from Steorn itself. Would like to be sure. --Archeus 10:33, 20 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well Steorn have a link to a PDF of the ad on their website, but as for an actual hard copy of the ad in the economist, no - i haven't seen one. Its certainly an interesting prospect that the ad may have been completely fabricated as well, but for it to get this much attention over an ad that never existed would make the world seem just a bit too gullible in my eyes. Smartaalec 14:13, 20 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]