Update: They blew it.
No reason U.S. independence day should slow the news down in Europe. Look for the long awaited demo from London of Steorn’s new Orbo device today, which supposedly creates a steady stream of energy from magnetic fields:
Orbo produces free, clean and constant energy – that is our claim. By free we mean that the energy produced is done so without recourse to external source. By clean we mean that during operation the technology produces no emissions. By constant we mean that with the exception of mechanical failure the technology will continue to operate indefinitely.
The sum of these claims for our Orbo technology is a violation of the principle of conservation of energy, perhaps the most fundamental of scientific principles. The principle of the conservation of energy states that energy can neither be created or destroyed, it can only change form.
Because of the revolutionary nature of our claim, not only to the world of science but to the world in general, Steorn issued a challenge to the scientific community in August 2006 to test our technology and report their findings. The process of validation that has resulted from this challenge is currently underway, with results expected by the end of 2007.
The core technology is “based upon the principle of time variant magneto-mechanical interactions,” which of course is exactly how I would have approached the problem, too. Engadget has a picture of the device. A demo video is promised to be published momentarily. Keep an eye on this blog, which is basically tracking the company and the product.
is Independence Day like April Fool’s Day then?
I dunno. Might be. We’re a little out of my area of expertise here.
What? Really?
This better not be a marketing ploy for The Saint II–I didn’t think Val Kilmer was that hard up for cash…
No. Possible. Way.
This technology is no doubt based on that recovered from the crashed alien spaceship in Roswell. It would have come out sooner, JFK was going to make it public, but he was silenced.
Either that or it’s a fraud.
yeah, i was thinking about the Saint, too. Good movie.
This still smells like a viral marketing campaign for something to me.
LMAO @ “which of course is exactly how I would have approached the problem, too”
If this IS real, then it’s astounding. It will totally revolutionise the way we produce and consume power…
Just… Wow.
Paul – glad someone noticed that.
From steorn.com:
“Due to technical difficulties we will now be live from London on the 5th July.”
Law of conservation of energy is broken! While we are at it, lets get rid of Causality as well (ie the effect must occur after the cause, not before)!!!
Reminds me fondly of the time I was the elected crack pot theory mediator at the Department of Physics in grad school (little known fact but most Physics departments actually have one). I not only had to go through tons of the next theory of everything, I had to actually meet with some of these “scientists” to explain why we could not use the theory as our next graduate project!!!
My magneto-mechanical interaction formulas are rusty, but I’m pretty sure that Elizabeth Shue + explosions + bad guys that only listen to Techno == classic.
The demo page is giving me a 403 now, but there is some clips about Steorn on YouTube dating back about 10 months, including some official promo vids.
Re: claims of unending energy
There is no reason to verify or debunk any claim of someone creating something that generates more energy than it consumes without limit. All they have to do is hook it up to the power grid and start running their meter backwards and eventually they will have all the money assuming that they do not give other people the secret. These types of claims are generally designed to get people to give them money to make a “prototype” though they have demonstrated it at “small scale”. The only thing is, the scale doesn’t matter when you are talking about a machine that outputs more energy than it consumes. Just keep making enough energy to get enough money to make a bigger one. The whole idea that someone would actually tell someone else about what they have done is ludicrous. So, my advice to all those that have invented infinite energy machines, 1) don’t tell anyone 2) hook it up to the grid 3) profit.
Sam,
You are 100% right about that. That’s exactly what my company has been doing since May 2006. We’ve been setting up devices as fast as we can produce, although they currently only produce 10kwH/month, we are very close to hitting the point at which our revenue from the sellback will cover the costs of further production.
Steorn is obviously a joke–if they were smart enough to figure out the tech they would have been smart enough to figure out the business.
I prefer The Saint tv show from the 60s… now that was a classic.
I was going to beg TC to go back to its usual good reporting though sprinkled with conflicts of interest etc., but then realized it was a nice change of pace to see read total BS that doesn’t have anything to do with Web 2.0.
Cute. Thanks.
Update 4/7/07 23:30
Due to slight technical difficulties we will now be publishing the live stream as of Thursday 5th July.
http://www.steo...leases/?id=1001
Your Independence Day is today? Independence from who?
we are due an advance in power generation, its been a while.
interesting to see the patent on it.
I believe from Great Britain. I’m not American though.
WOW,
I need that juice…………….
Vijay
Steorn = Stoner
# Slang
1. One who is habitually intoxicated by alcohol or drugs.
2. One who is a delinquent or failure.
——–
Go figure, they’re being delinquent right now. I’m going to call hoax.
Mike, we’ll soon be launching our Leprechaun Social Network where each invite you send to your friends comes with a free Pot O’ Gold. We believe we are at the cutting edge of Web2 in Ireland.
Just cos it’s Independence Day we’ll let ya away with this one. Next time we’ll set Darby O’Gill on you.
I guess to Steorn’s benefit, it also stands for “no rest” …
PS – By “energy” we mean hype.
Now if someone could just invent a machine that helps pasty white computer nerds get laid, then I’d be impressed.
Till then… free energy? pffffffft.
which of course is exactly how I would have approached the problem, too.
Very funny!
Not sure if you folks have heard of the guy that invented the Segway or not. I think his name is Dean Caine, although I can’t really remember.
Although the Segway never met the hype he created on launch, the guy did invent the kidney dialysis machine among some other very useful things. He’s worth quite a bit due to his inventions as well.
Some time ago he started devoting his efforts to the very same thing, a perpetual energy device. I remember seeing an early sample of his version,
albeit it wasn’t working when he displayed it. His mission was to give away the technology (when created) to change the world. A bit altruistic, but he does have enough money already and doesn’t need anymore. There are some people out there who really do want to make a difference and are not always thinking of the cash…….
Whether this company has truly created one or not will come to light over the next day or two, and whether Mr. Segway will come up with one is also yet to be seen. This isn’t my area of expertise either but I for one will be looking forward to the day someone comes up with some energy source where we’ll all say, holy sh*t – now why didn’t I think of that. It will come!
Interesting to see that the collective IQ of Tech Crunch readers is markedly higher than the mouth-breathers who comment on Engadget. A significant chunk of the Engadgetites believe that this story could be real.
With these things around, I wouldnt mind running the AC 24/7. Know what im sayin’
Len:
Dean Kamen is not now, nor has he ever been, working on a “perpetual enegy device”. There were however a lot of scientifically illiterate journalists bandying about the phrase “perpetual motion” in connection with his famous scooter.
“Perpetual energy” and “perpetual motion” fall into the category: “impossible, full stop”. Not in this universe. Not ever.
Len,
It’s Dean Kamen who invented the Segway
Dean Cain(e) was Superman. But, he could generate perpetual energy too with his laser eyes or by flying around the earth really fast…
Wow. If TechCrunch is not covering this sarcastically, they need to take a little high school physics. Or at least history. “Perpetual motion machines” have been a favorite scam of con artists for literally millenia.
For my taste the Cleantech bubble is much more fun than the Internet bubble (I mean the last one in the late 90’s). On the Internet, you usually speak to very dry and hardworking engineers who have build some really complex software technology. Whether the market will buy it or not was a different question. However, over the last 18 months I was pitched machines that cool down computing centers with their own warm air, pump water with the water pressure itself, and make biofuels from … oil. I love it.
So I did a wiki after posting, and yes I had his name wrong, as well as what he was working on. He has been working on a stirling engine,
http://en.wikip...Stirling_engine
My mistake.
Anyway, Steve…lighten up. If you’re going to refute someone in a forum, blog, etc… at least post some backup and not just nasty attitude.
I do remember seeing something about a perpetual energy device (not in Marvel comics either), just can’t remember who it was that was working on it, and confused it with Dean Kamen (something I read about over 5 years ago). And no it wasn’t anything I read from “scientifically illiterate journalists” on the Segway.
Anyway I did say I was looking forward to a “new energy source”, and not necessarily a perpetual one!
Mitch: very funny, loved your response.
http://www.steo...tion/challenge/
Has a video. They do look like believers, anyways.
This is easy. What you do is take two rechargeable batteries. Hook them to each other and then hook up your favorite device. You will have unlimited power since as one battery drains, the other one will re-charge it, and vice-versa. If you don’t believe me, try it!
all this is fine but how do we plug this darn thing ?
Remember John Galt’s motor anyone
?
I think this news story is similar to http://zapMeals.com
I’ve found an unlimited source of energy right in my house. It’s this thing on the wall… up until now, I never realized what it was. I tried sticking my finger in it before, but it sparked and burned.
Who would have thought that my house could produce free energy from the walls?!
Can I put one in my car? Fuckin’ gas prices are killing me.
I don’t get it. If you live in United States. you can see in some state. Sometimes you can’t.
For example, IP address can identify that if you are christian, Jews, catholics. they strict banned that video site. Some states might be against evolution theory or breaking laws of phycis. It’s like having gay marriage or abortion or anti-war protesting or patriotic protesting.
If you decide to built Anti gravity or free energy stuff for real. But sometimes you have to be careful with life, experiment, government, and MIB people.
Like Wright brothers. Both of brothers were rised christian values. They were so against government for using airplane as war machine. One of wright brothers failed to write anti-war plane on his journal. He never wrote it.
Today, you see government rebel. F14, F117, Stealth bomber, black bird, MiGs, F16, madness war planes all over the world, etc….
Peace process… Nope.
Peace hopes… Nope…
War… Yes…
Within minute chance that this is not bogus and can produce even a small amount more energy than already exists in this universe does anyone else wonder what the effects of having more energy would have on the earth? I mean if we haven’t figured out how to get rid of energy then what will become of all of this extra energy running around?
This simply seems bogus, There is nothing on earth that exhibits perpetual motion, right? WRONG. In fact, something inside you right now is moving with the property of perpetual motion. Actually Quadrillions of things inside you exert perpetual motion. Give Up? The simple Electron. Its not a massless particle like a photon (mass = 9.10938188 × 10-31 kilograms), yet it constantly moves at the speed of light around the nucleus of an atom in predetermined orbitals. In fact, the only way to stop an electron from moving on its own is to freeze it to absolute zero, a temperature that simply CANNOT BE REACHED within our universe. I’m not saying Steorn actually has a product, but I am saying lets have a conversation with an open mind toward what wonders our universe holds just beneath the surface.
“This simply seems bogus, There is nothing on earth that exhibits perpetual motion, right? WRONG.”
why are you triumphantly coming up with the example of an electron – a subatomic particle not directly observable that occupies a probability shell around an atom – why not just state that the ‘earth moves perpetually around the sun’? (etc)
so i’ll just assume you did that, raise the example of an orbiting body, and then answer that something that orbits is not generating energy, it is merely following a basic law of physics: once a body is in motion it stays in motion unless acted on (etc etc)
There are surely wonderful things in this universe, but the fool in this “news” article is wasting everyones time.
Raj, that is a very good suggestion. There are many natural phenomena entailing both perpetual motion and “free energy”. Space itself, in the total absence of matter and radiation, fulminates with virtual photons and electrons. The Casimir experiment is conclusive proof of lab-harnessable free energy.
>will be published momentarily
Let’s hope we don’t miss it
If this is ture .. we are surely in the dawn of a new ERA !!!
….. jus thnk …. cell phones that need not charged life long …. no electricity bills ….. even fuels wil be replced with never ending energy … wow .. cool …. CARS and vehicles need not be fueled for lifetime 
….. remember the saying ..” one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” … 