I suppose the Navy and some other institutions have to give the odd mad scientist a bit of space to try their ideas out, just in case a competitor gets their hands on something important and completely unforeseen. And gods know, a lot of today's pocket devices would have been unimaginable in 1850. But I used to work in pubs and there was one of these blokes in all of them, usually sitting next to the bloke who'd been in the SAS and had a bullet wound where you couldn't see it.

Not holding my breath, to put it briefly.