laser

How many times in a day do you think “man, a laser would come in super handy right now”? If you’re like me, probably half a dozen or so (alright, so, mainly I wish I had a pen light to torture the cat, but still). If you’re a James Bond fan, you might even wish that laser was mounted to a watch, and you could burn ropes typing you down, or like seal a bag of chips on the fly. That’s getting closer to reality for you and I, as one tinkerer has created a laser-enabled watch.

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The ubiquity of mobile devices is starting to push the limits of the Internet's infrastructure to the breaking point. Add that to the fact that a lot more regions don't have quality connections or don't have Internet at all, and you have a scenario where service providers are scrambling to add more and more cables, especially fiber optic ones, on land and on sea. But such installations cost time, money, and, in some cases, political will. AOptix's solution is cheaper as it uses a combination of laser and radio waves to bring the Internet anywhere.

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The US Navy has deployed a ship to the Persian Gulf called the USS Ponce. The USS Ponce is an amphibious transport dock ship and it is carrying with it the first laser weapon sent into trails on an active duty warship. The laser weapon is effective against numerous targets, including Iranian gunboats. The laser is a 30-kilowatt class weapon and has been aboard the ship since August.

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Military Humvees with lasers capable of shooting down drones should be ready for field-testing by 2016, preparing for a new age of warfare where unmanned, remotely-controlled weapons platforms attack from the skies. The Ground-Based Air Defense Directed Energy On-the-Move program (GBAD) aims to equip US Marines with highly portable anti-drone weapon systems, significantly miniaturized versus the lasers the US Navy will test on battleships later this year.

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Lasers and carbon nanotubes peering into the brain might sound like the stuff of science fiction, but tests that could one day mean precise non-invasive diagnosis of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and other diseases are already underway. The technology, developed by chemists at Stanford University, has so far been tested on mice, but opens the door to an alternative to physically removing sections of the skull to track cellular-level changes.

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NASA has reached another milestone, and probably a world record, in its efforts to speed up communication between a spacecraft and Earth. It has just sent a short high-definition video from the International Space Station 260 miles above the planet to its ground base in California, using a laser beam instead of the traditional radio wave.

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It's the battle of the super-niche supercars, and it's being fought with lasers. Laser headlamps, that is, with Audi following BMW in adding laser lamp technology on its flagship R8 LMX limited-edition coupe, but claiming to in fact be the first production car to actually deliver the tech to eager nighttime drivers.

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A study has been published that outlines a method of creating a laser beam that can travel further than lasers were previously able to travel. Researchers from the University of Arizona have developed a way to increase the distance the laser can travel in air by encasing it in the beam of light of another laser. The process is described as being similar to wrapping a wire in an insulating layer.

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The US Navy will begin in-the-wild trials of a laser weapon that can bring down aircraft or small vessels this summer, controlled just like a video game and costing about $1 a shot. The technology will be deployed initially on the USS Ponce, an amphibious transport dock in the Persian Gulf, rather than mounted to a shark's head, the Navy confirmed, and is part of R&D weaponry trials that also include railguns.

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The team responsible for protecting Israel’s commercial jets at the Israel Ministry of Defense have announced that they’re about to start doing it with lasers. They’ll be protecting these craft with SkyShield, a system developed by Israeli defense contractor Elbit Systems. This system utilizes laser technology with a thermal camera to deflect incoming threats.

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BMW is outfitting its luxury i8 plug-in hybrid coupe with lasers, though unfortunately that won't mean blasting slower traffic out of the lane ahead. The car will be the first production model in the world to get laser light headlamps, which use laser diodes to produce more daylight-like illumination, boost range, and - perhaps most importantly on a car powered by batteries - cut power consumption.

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NASA has successfully tested its Morpheus lander prototype. It launched today over a flame trench at NASA's Kennedy Space Center's Shuttle Landing Facility, climbed 50 feet into the air, hovered for 15 seconds, flew 23 feet and landed on the designated pad. Once put into service, the Morpheus model will be used to deliver cargo and fuel to asteroids and other extraterrestrial surfaces, as well as refuel deep-space probes. This is the same model that last year crashed and burst into flames like four Jiffy Pops going supernova.

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