Actually I didn't see anything outrageously scammy in this incident, neither the linked reports were whitewash and bad science any more then the "excellent dissection" of the claims.

So the "dissector" did some back-of-the-envelop order-of-magnitude calculation and found that 1 minute "rope" function cannot be sustained unless the tag is within 50cm of a router. I thought the matter of fact here is not 1 minute "rope", but 5 minute "rope", which would supposedly require 5 times less energy and can be placed 2 times further away. Using the same number the dissecting article uses, their tag in 5 minute rope uses just about 2-3 microW of power, as much as the counter article itself calculates is available at 4 m distance.

What more, the second linked report openly shows how tag can sort off maintain its energy at 1-2 m from emitters, but looses charge at 3m, which maybe very sloppy experiment, have to give it that, but IN NO WAY CONTRADICTS with anything the "critics" say, actually.

I can agree that 1-2m range in lowest ping mode is not practical, as the critics seized upon, however, people THIS IS A PROTOTYPE not a final product. If they had already polished and awesome device, why the fk would they need a kickstarter campaign???

That said, I can see a ton of ways they can try and improve their product to be more practical after collecting the funding: they can try to further reduce power consumption of the circuit, if they just used off-the-shelf components now, the possibility of this is quite quite plausible; they can try to work out some software tricks, such as remembering the location of the tag the last time it handshake'd; they can try to register a freq band and sell dedicated RF charging stations for charging their tags at home; they can ask people to re-charge their tags every two weeks by placing them in 1-2m radius of a wifi router -- any one of these is better than having a batteried device that needs change of battery or be plugged into a charger every time.

As for Dr Paul McArthur identity, it is clearly stated that he is a research professor at U of Utah, and he may not in fact have a sizable footprint on the "internet". I know a ton of professors who do not use LinkedIn or FB, or even if they do have such account, keep in nominally. That's because these people are too busy with teaching, advising students, doing research, and managing universities to also deal with the self-masturbation called social networking. Besides, they already have an outlet to connect to the people they need, it is called peer-reviewed journals and academic publications. So it is quite possible the guy wouldn't have a ton of blogs, twitter streams and yada yada. Where his footprint should be searched is in academic journals and patent office, where he does have hits as some people here already pointed out.

I agree that the project description is overly optimistic and may not quite correspond the final product they will be able to put out, but to call it a complete scam it is just another mass hysteria driven by know-it-all nerds feeling empowered by self-published blogs and modern social networking, who think they know it all but but really don't know shit.

This answer is simply awesome! Wish I had mod points.

... Sorry Dave, I can't let you do that...

There is no spin of the story. there are well publicized (at least in Russian newspapers) statements by officials in Putin administration what Russia will do if Yanukovych fails to disband Maidan [by any means possible]. and that was, force Ukraine federalize power to the regions, instigate hostile takeover in eastern regions ala Crimea, followed by referendum under unidentified armed people, and followed by absorption of said regions into Russia. the plan voiced and published quite openly back in December/January, all the way to Dnepr. So what you have now in Ukraine is not a country on brink of civil war. What you have is 5 years in making plan by Putin to re-absorb Ukraine and reinstate USSR, with Yanukovych de-facto destroying Ukrainian military and police ever since he came into office, transferring 30 billion USD of "government" money in January to Russia in cash and another 100 billion by other means earlier, and then deserting to Russia when things got uncomfortably hot. Once that sabotage stage of Putin's plan came to end, read Maydan, the active phase of the plan kicked in. That comprised sending in russian sabotage units from Crimea and east, led by people who nearly openly identify themselves in papers like Komsomolskaya Pravda as GRU operatives with the task to instigate or mimick, whichever necessary, civil unrest in Easter regions, yada yada read above, suppress in the most violeng form any pro-ukrainian dissent, so that it can't develop into anything before Russian troops arve, etcr. this s is accompanied by strong Russian propaganda on world stage, that worked for them so well with Assad, that consists of , no matter what actually happens, claim that Ukraine is on brink of civil war, Ukraine is shooting on peaceful citizens, Ukraine should move its army out of eastern regions, and - deny any involvement just as it worked so well for Assad. Even as pro-ukranian rallies are violently beaten one after another, pro-ukrainian activists shot and found dead, and overall the truth emerges that's what's going on is orchestrated Russian special forces spectacle, and noone in their clear mind and under 50 years of age, who had seen Russia from outside, ever wants to live under Putin. So that's the writing on the wall, now go ahead and correlate that with what yo learn from media. In fact western published actions are way way pro-russian compared to say Ukrainian newspapers; you can't imagine what actual shit is going on in Ukraine's eastern regions if you just read CNN or BBC - people are running from slavyansk, for example, saying that they are effectively being held hostage by foreign spec ops UN t that took over the city, speaking *Chechen* at the checkpoints, but the above is the generally correct picture.

when bullets are flying at least there is faint hope the person behind the crosshair is directing them. when a gas bomb gets dropped every mother, child and baby sleeping in their bad in the freaking area suffocate and die you moron

You are missing the point that you'll be the one in 10 who normally would be willing to pay "money" for "free" a service. So make it more like $200/year, and then Twitter will happily make it happen for you.

You apparently have no idea what you are talking about. The patent is followed through by a single examiner, and all and any appeals all way until the final rejection ALL go through the said bastard. There are no balances and checks, if the examiner says an "A" in your patent is a "Z", you can argue all you want and that won't make a difference. I had three rounds with an examiner who returned completely irrelevant references to the patent, and in the end, he just said -- I don't give a fuck, I'll still reject your patent... Only after final rejection you can file an appeal that will be reviewed by a different examiner(s). But the chances are this new bastard(s) will be just sitting next to your old bastard ... so you can guess how that might play out ... In the meanwhile, you are $10k-20k, or whatever, out of your budget. And again, there is nowhere to appeal - if the examiner in final decision says that "A" is "Z" ... well, good luck with that ... arguing is like talking to a wall ... good luck with the #$%@ US patent system

Perhaps they should try to get good at fixing the robots that fix industrial robots ... ? ;)

I guess you missed this part ... see, just as he got SSD to spin at 1k it started to vibrate and make dangerous noises...

I laughed my ass off :)))

that's a good joke, did he ever try to type anything seriosu on touchscreen keyboard ?

a missile intercepting a 10 ton object moving at 40kms ??? sorry bud that is not possible

new Digital Pen electrocutes the holder until he/she gets the spelling/grammar right !

Speaking of Russia, to be on the bright side, you should recall how long it took Russia to go from one of the "world's superpowers" to "3rd world country". The one thing we learned from Russia's collapse is that the things you think will take decades often happen in less than a year. Once the breaking point is reached, it snaps, you will never see it coming... simple as that.