BBC news item - nonsense?

[PaxVobiscum]

...Or maybe I am just ready for the nursing home. Have at look at this, especially the bit at the end in bold:

Testing out a hoverboard

Until now hoverboards have largely been the stuff of science fiction, popularised by movies like Back to the Future 2, in which Marty McFly rode a flying skateboard to get around.

But now a Silicon Valley startup has just won crowdfunding for a real-world hoverboard - the first able to carry a load and not constrained to rails.

It uses magnetic levitation - creating a magnetic field underneath the board which is repelled by a non-ferrous surface like iron underneath - allowing the board to levitate.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-30531120

I believe that "Whisky Tango Foxtrot" be the current expression.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Are not these items vetted before being committed to print by the BBC....or has that department been closed as part their economy drive?

 

[PG]

The offending sentence has now been changed to read:

It uses magnetic levitation - creating a magnetic field underneath the board which is repelled by a non-ferrous surface like copper or aluminium underneath - allowing the board to levitate.

Out of curiosity I looked up the author of the article, and came across his LinkedIn profile. Seems like the 'North America technology correspondent' hasn't got much of a technological background/education :roll:

 

[Jonny]

The offending sentence has now been changed to read:
Out of curiosity I looked up the author of the article, and came across his LinkedIn profile. Seems like the 'North America technology correspondent' hasn't got much of a technological background/education :roll:

They very rarely do...

 

[Hyphen]

Seems like the 'North America technology correspondent' hasn't got much of a technological background/education :roll:

You ought to see some of the absolute tosh Rory Cellan-Jones comes out with. I still can't understand why he's head of the Beeb's tech reporting. So bad is he that I find it easier just to pretend the BBC doesn't have tech news.

A few years ago he became a rather Fry-esque iShiny lover, and regularly appeared on Breakfast to gasp at how "magical and revolutionary" each new iteration was, almost to the point of kneeling to Saint Jobs to thank him for allowing such technology to be released. In recent times he's calmed down a little on that, but still.

The Register (a fairly trusted independent tech news website) has had a couple of rather public clashes with Cellan-Jones over what "coding" is, in relation to the ease of programming a Raspberry Pi, and also over the Govt's latest "teaching coding" fad.

Perhaps he's good at making tech news 'accessible' to the masses (it's probably not aimed at IT professionals such as myself), but in my own opinion he dumbs content down to the point of just being wrong.