laser

If that levitating speaker has given you a fondness for floating objects, the new Magic Cube will satisfy your showcasing needs. Magic Cube is basically a levitating display, though it also serves just as well as a funky modern decorative piece. The unit is comprised of a large cube-shaped base that houses the technology, and a small saucer-shaped levitating platform upon which you can place an available clear prism, or a small object of your choosing, or both.

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Hot on the heels of Google's impressive report card on Project Loon, Facebook is also making a similarly impressive update on its own take on how to connect anyone anywhere to the Internet and, of course, to Facebook. As part of its Internet.org endeavor, its Connectivity Lab has focused on developing technologies that will push the boundaries of current network infrastructures to bring the Internet where no cable line has gone before. And now, two of its most important technologies are ready to be put to the test.

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Lasers have been around since the 60s and are used in many different applications today. Lasers come in several colors including red and green among others, but one color has eluded scientists until now. A group of researchers at Arizona State University have created the world's first white laser. The team has shown that semiconductor lasers are capable of emitting the full visible color spectrum required to produce a white light laser.

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Researchers in Japan recently fired the most powerful laser in the world called the LFEX or Laser for fast Ignition Experiments. The laser packs 2 petawatts of power into its fast pulse spanning one trillionth of a second. The laser is massive at more than 300 feet in length. The incredibly short laser pulse means that the laser doesn't consume as much power to operate as you might imagine.

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When your core business is essentially dependent on the Internet, it makes sense that you'd want everyone to have access to the Internet as well. Google has its Project Loon and Facebook has Internet.org. Of course, those are lofty goals, but the question is always "how". Unlike Google's balloons, Facebook will be using satellites, drones, and lasers. Yes, lasers. Mark Zuckerberg has just posted online, on his Facebook account no less, a teaser of what's to come, with lasers being shot from the sky to deliver the Internet, and Facebook, to everyone.

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The latest technology from the U.S. Air Force and Army that could head into the battlefield involves harnessing laser power to destroy fields of landmines from a safe distance. The Air Force-built laser will be incorporated into the Army's mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles (MRAPs). The specific prototype is known as RADBO which stands for Recovery of Airbase Denied by Ordinance. It's a lengthy moniker, but it accurately describes the missions in which the laser should be used--turning an airfield that is littered with landmines into a usable airbase with as few casualties as possible.

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Science fiction just got a DIY treatment and got closer to home. It won't be enough to stop a truck dead on its wheels like Lockheed Martin's contraption, which is unabashedly a weapon of destruction, but YouTube user Styropyro's homebrew laser shotgun is still powerful enough to do some damage and burn things, even wood. And perhaps the scariest part about it is that it is something that makers, DIYers, and science enthusiasts can build right at home, with just the right tools, the right materials, and the right motivation.

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If you thought lasers were powerful now, just wait a couple of years. A group of researchers have said that new laser technology coming down the pipeline over the next few years will able to reproduce a gamma-ray burst — an explosion in space that emits more energy within a few minutes than the sun in its lifetime — here on Earth. One of the scientists who contributed to a study on this possibility says the goal is to learn exactly what happens within "some of the most energetic events in the universe."

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The sun is very, very hot. We have all known this since grade school. Scientists have created an incredibly powerful laser that can create plasma that is many times hotter than the center of the sun. The incredibly powerful laser that is able to create the intensely heated plasma has 200-trillion watts of power. The photo here is a shot of that laser and the incredibly bright spot is the super hot plasma.

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As the ISS floats above earth, it's actually hurtling around its orbit at 17,000 mph. Any debris that it encounters at that speed could have major consequences, so the ISS often has to change course throughout its orbit just to avoid space debris from previous missions. According to NASA, there are about 3,000 tons of space debris in a cloud around Earth in low-Earth orbit. There is another belt of debris higher above the earth in geo-synchronous orbit. A team of Japanese scientists proposed a solution using lasers to blast the debris before it can damage the ISS.

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The original R2-D2 virtual keyboard is gone. It's forever on the shelves and in the display cases of collectors around the world, for the rest of time. For those of you that missed it, there's always the imperial droid R2-Q5, his black and orange-ness, as we call him around here. This fellow is being released by the same company that originally released his R2-D2 equivalent, and this version will be released on May the 4th, 2015, just in time for the most important holiday of the entire year.

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Space Invaders is right up there in the gaming hall of fame, together with the likes of Pong and Pac-man, which have sparked the imagination and creativity of many young ones, despite or even probably because of the simplistic 8-bit style. And when it comes to imagination and creativity, nothing beats this new generation of makers and their tools. Like this one Martin Raynsford, who turned an essential tool that he uses for work into, what else, a physical, real, and probably really dangerous game of Space Invaders.

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