The invention was refined in conjunction with engineers at the University of Ottawa, and its debut at MIT certainly raised a few eyebrows, even causing electromagnetics expert Markus Zahn to praise it cautiously:

It's an unusual phenomena I wouldn't have predicted in advance. But I saw it. It's real. Now I'm just trying to figure it out...To my mind this is unexpected and new, and it's worth exploring all the possible advantages once you're convinced it's a real effect.

Heins named his invention after a Greek word meaning an action that "has the opposite effect to that intended," and that certainly applies to his life—his wife walked out on him—as well as his device. He's certainly reluctant to use the phrase "perpetual motion" himself, because of the controversy attached, and the allegation that they violate the hallowed law of conservation of energy. Mystery success or just another myth: let us know what you think in the comments. [Toronto Star]

No, Steorn did not create a wormhole to another part of the universe. There was no white hot spinny thing raging out of control, though there were problems with spinny things, and they did involve excessive heat. The "technical difficulties" message appeared thusly:

We are experiencing some technical difficulties with the demo unit in London. Our initial assessment indicates that this is probably due to the intense heat from the camera lighting. We have commenced a technical assessment and will provide an update later today. As a consequence, Kinetica will not be open to the public today (5th July). We apologise for this delay and appreciate your patience.

The question now is: Will it ever happen? We're not so sure, although much of the world has already pounded the gavel and headed off to chambers. Stay tuned to the camera link and find out. In the meantime, I leave you more technically minded readers with Steorn's own description of the Orbo technology (which it is very happy to license or have you invest in). Is it snakeoil? Or does it have real bite? You be the judge:

Orbo is based upon the principle of time variant magneto-mechanical interactions. The core output from our Orbo technology is mechanical. This mechanical energy can be converted into electrical energy using standard generator technology either by integrating such technology directly with Orbo or by connecting the mechanical output from Orbo to the generation technology. The efficiency of such mechanical/electrical conversions is highly dependent on the components used and is also a function of size.