Orbo goes on demo (sale?) .. breaks physics :-/

Someone who gives answers full of jargon in an everyday interview is deliberately attempting to obfuscate to mask the fact that they're talking absolute nonsense.

Everyone wants to be understood when they're communicating with another person, so will naturally dial down what they're talking about to ensure they get their point across.

Deliberately refusing to do this is a dead giveaway that someone is a complete spoofer.

It's clear in the interviews that this is what McCarthy does.

One thing though is that it's not necessarily a "scam" for investors. Venture capitalists don't care if it works. They only care if it sells. For that, confidence in a CEO and a marketing campaign are more important than confidence in a product. If McCarthy can convince the general public (or even a niche market - he only has to sell 100,000 of these things) that his nonsense is worth buying, investors will be happy.

If he told them he was building a free energy system that could solve the world's problems and be freely licensed, he would have no investors.

23 people working for Steorn. I have difficulty seeing any good engineers wasting their career on this nonsense. I wonder if McCarthy is holding a lot of the engineering reigns and keeping parts of the "system" secret, convincing the few engineers he does have that their periphery work is worthwhile. 20 of those 23 people are probably sales, marketing and support. Then 3 people working in software engineering and some mechanical/electronic engineering.

edit: Actually, looking at some of the sites talking about it, it's clear that they're also pulling a double-bluff on this one and expecting to make significant sales to people who have more money than sense and are buying one to see if they can figure out how it works. Hence why they're not sending any demo units to technology magazines or experts.

Deleted User wrote: »

You are all so way off the mark! This is hilarious

Care to expand? Any hypothesis based in real science to explain what they're doing?

zuutroy wrote: »

@seamus: Investors of course are only interested in making a return on their investment, but as soon as they sell one of these they will be facing legal action for fraud and any investment will be following all that went before it down the toilet.

My guess is that they've been very careful in how they've worded what the Orbo actual does. He said in the interview that they're giving a 12 month warranty but I wonder what does that actually cover. Have they ever claimed how many charge cycles it can do? If it works a couple of time, then breaks (runs out of juice) have they actually lied at any stage?

The only way I can see this could be plausible would be if it was somehow harvesting energy from the environment, through either heat or EM waves. It'd be interested to know if it operates in a Faraday Cage.

mcmoustache wrote: »

I too am curious.

poWi-fi maybe

Just to show off, the team also connected their antenna to a Jawbone fitness tracker and used it to recharge the coin batter that powered it. “Using this, we charge a Jawbone UP24 device in the vicinity of the PoWi-Fi router from a no-charge state to 41% charged state in 2.5 hours,” they say.

http://www.technologyreview.com/view/538031/first-demonstration-of-a-surveillance-camera-powered-by-ordinary-wi-fi-broadcasts/

http://ujvilagtudat.blogspot.ie/2015/08/tesla-forradalom-tudosoknak-sikerult.html

http://www.mexiconewsnetwork.com/news/bat-gen/

Seems like the have they the key to power in mexico also

JTMan wrote: »

Why is it taking Steorn so long to ship out the units to people who have paid for them? Is there an exact ETA for delivery?

http://dispatchesfromthefuture.com/ * , who claims to have ordered one, has great fun speculating on the issue...

*might be a shill, of course :P

Hang on - maybe Steorn are crowd-sourcing their ongoing business strategy from discussions of the controversy such as this :eek:

seamus wrote: »

Not sure about a shill, but certainly taking a more optimistic view than most.

I think the most likely way this is going to play out now is that they will delay by another 2-4 weeks and then declare with much sadness that there is a fatal manufacturing flaw in the Orbo which means they have to go back to the drawing board and cannot ship any units. 4-8 weeks later, customers will be refunded.

During this time what they're actually doing is using the income to pay off some old debts and look attractive to investors. Once they have the funding locked in, they can then secure new loans to refund the customers and continue on as before.

Steorn have never delivered anything. Ever. I don't see any reason why they would start now. The entire company is based in an illusion that they don't allow people to shatter. By delivering these units, it can be proven once and for all that they're a sham.

Why have images with lines and lines of ready-to-ship units and piles of empty boxes? To give people confidence that a solid, tangible item exists and their €1,200 isn't going into the ether. These are most likely empty cases just plonked onto the countertop - maybe with a USB port glued inside.

There are no videos of the device working. Not even nicely polish Apple-esque mockups videos. The youtube link on the Orbo site has no videos.

They didn't even bother to create a "working" fake with a battery and a USB port to show it charging a phone. That's how obvious it is that these things won't ship.

Perhaps.

I wonder what became of the supposed field test in Slattery's pub last year http://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/self-charging-battery-causes-a-stir-in-dublin-pub-test-1.2211622
Someone must know someone who knows how that panned out

celtic_oz wrote: »

Steorn’s Offices Bugged – Miniature Spy Cameras Found



“I am someplace between amused and bemused, one thing for sure is that being in the lab alone at night does not feel as comfortable as it used to!…the cabling in these buildings is all over the place, will take a few days to follow them – it does however look like they head out of the office…”

Source

Ha ha - I'm sure they can monetise this entertainment to pay their bills :pac:

The site also has a link some sort of copy of Slattery's report on the May 'field test' (which I could not find directly online). In any case, I suppose it's not of any interest if it only went over a few days.

Elsewhere just now (can't remember where it was linked from) I came across another claimed Orbo-orderer https://orboblog.wordpress.com/

€1200 and it does not seem to work. Money back please

Frank Acland has opened one up.

http://www.e-catworld.com/2016/02/12/ecw-orbo-o-cube-testing-week-1-feb-9/

Seems like a con. No-one is getting what they ordered. Even the oPhone on test had to go back to the lab on 17th Feb - and nothing since. Orbo buyers got an email saying that they had two options - a refund or wait for another 6-8 weeks.

Pathetic really.

JTMan wrote: »

Radio silence from Steorn. Maybe they have done a runner.

Update here http://dispatchesfromthefuture.com/2016/03/latest-steorn-update-moves-goalposts/

He ends with a note of irrepressible optimism, as always with such followers - it's almost like a religious faith :pac:

Sunday Business Post reports:
- Devices sold last year did not work.
- Shaun McCarthy gone as CE.
- 23 million taken from investors. Looking for more money from investors.
- Company will wind up if it does not get more money.
- AGM in August.
- Might take another 7-10 years to develop the technology.

So, Steorn have taken 23 million from shareholders (including rural farmers according to reports) and do not have a working device a decade later.