Tag: magnet

Technology

Free, clean and constant energy?

I saw a post on Pat Phelan’s blog today about Steorn which sounded a little incredible, so I looked a little deeper into it.

The background is that an Irish company called Steorn put a full-page ad in the Economist saying:

At Steorn we have developed a technology that produces free, clean and constant energy…. We are therefore issuing a challenge to the scientific community: test our
technology and report your findings to the world.

Full page ads in the Economist don’t come cheap so if this is a hoax, it is an elaborate one!

According to Wikipedia’s entry for Steorn, Sean McCarthy, CEO for Steorn said in an interview with RTE:

What we have developed is a way to construct magnetic fields so that when you travel round the magnetic fields, starting and stopping at the same position, you have gained energy, […] The energy isn’t being converted from any other source such as the energy within the magnet. It’s literally created. Once the technology operates it provides a constant stream of clean energy.”

I hope they prove me wrong but personally I don’t believe a word of it – see the promotional video and judge for yourself.

Broadband

Is Ireland finally going to get (expensive) broadband?

Piaras dropped me a note today to let me know that Magnet Networks are rolling out fast broadband in Ireland – I have written previously about the shocking state of broadband in Ireland.

Now Magnet are going to offer:

24MB service – €240.00 incl VAT (250 GB download cap)
10 MB – €149.00 incl VAT (150GB download cap)
4MB – €63.99 incl VAT (100GB download cap)
2MB – €39.99 incl VAT (25GB download cap)

All the offers incl the usual line rental free

Now, all this seems a tad pricey – especially since BE are offering 24mb broadband in the UK for £24 per month – however, previous to this offer, the best broadband offer in Ireland was Digiweb’s 6MB offer at €301.29 incl VAT afaik.

Ok, now we are about to have the speed – who’s going to start a price war and get the prices down to something realistic?

I see Damien has written this up too.