@Gann: "Hah! You can see... Yourself!"

Log1c

@GirlGadget:
@DeanOfAllTrades:

Awesome.

strider_mt2k

pew pew pew

groverdog

Ya know, Firestarter had the same problem with heat dissapation. Maybe Boeing could check in with her??

kaylix

I would love to see a video of them vaporizing something. Like the shotgun blast in Death Becomes Her.

impliedsurprise

oooh. When can I order bazooka-sized shoulder cannon, a la Akira?

Lukewpnunn

Mirrors: the new camouflage

Gann

Uh oh, I'm in St. Louis...I'M IN RANGE! Hmm...wonder what I could get on ebay for one of these... :P

Skitchin

One step closer to Giant Fighting Robots! I want my mech now!

bootie

Any mention of whether or not the laser can be strapped to the head of, say, a shark?

aseriesoftubes

I would love to see pics of scientist team working on the test site. I bet all the guys around it were wearing safety goggles. even tho... eh, forget it.

froggy

+ Watch video

DeanOfAllTrades

Isn't this the laser from Real Genius?

DeanOfAllTrades

Imagine your at a Mannheim Steamroller, Christmas, Laser show and they accidentally switched out the lasers for some of these 25kW ones. I may actually enjoy a Mannheim Steamroller show.

Rabid Penguin

@MadColombian: But then where would progress come from? lol.

s7yl33

@weatherman:

instant, permanent blindness comes to mind.

nutbastard

Have they not learned the lesson taught to us by Iron Man?

Make amazing weapons... bad guys will eventually get them.
(the jericho (sp?) and iron man suit as examples)

MadColombian

I doubt ONLY lethal laser would be allowed. I don't think you'd get court marshaled for having a laser pen on your key chain!

Workout

But the professor demanded 5 megawatts by mid-May!

lawnmowerdeth

I'm curious about what the "non-lethal" applications are, since my understanding that only lethal lasers would be allowable on the battlefield.

weatherman

I like how instead of solving problems we spend billions to destroy them. And also, I can't wait for this to fall into the wrong hands....as if us building it isn't already the wrong hands.

MJDeviant

First place to use them...London Underground, to remove the protesting masses.

faabshaam

But does it make popcorn?

GirlGadget

@Monty: Now the kilt was only for day-to-day wear. In battle, we donned a full-length ball gown covered in sequins. The idea was to blind your opponent with luxury.

Git Em SteveDave

@nutbastard:

Wouldn't be more like instant, permanent head loss?

Bistroengine

@sqeakytoy of the apocalypse: I always admire Jordan. Hyperactive, a genius, doesn't sleep, and cute? What else could you ask for?

What about that time I caught you naked with that bowl of Jello?

Git Em SteveDave

LAZERS! THEY STING! MY EYES!

bbfreak

What colors will this laser beam be available in? I am partial to blue, especially when fighting on desert soil. But there are times when a nice red beam can really perk-up the troops and present a new message to the enemy.

Monty

"I was dreaming"
"Was it the one where you were standing on top a pyramid, in Sun God robes, with thousands of naked women throwing little pickles at you?"
"... ...no...?"
"Why is it that I am the only one that has that dream?"

sqeakytoy of the apocalypse

@GirlGadget:
@lawnmowerdeth:
@DeanOfAllTrades:
before we begin, let me say I admire your taste in footwear...

sqeakytoy of the apocalypse

Sending energy to a target at the speed of light is one thing; targeting and tracking something that's in motion (like a shoulder-mounted missile) will be quite another.

Jeffrey McManus

Next up, Boeing introduces world's first working Lightsaber.

Boatski

@DeanOfAllTrades:

It's Uncle Rico!

Bistroengine

Hammer of Dawn is online. Woohoo!

SigmundTheSeaMonster

@Gann: You nailed it. Super expensive and mega-powerful laser, meet mirror.

harshmellow

@bobdobbs: Popcorn!!!

tamoko

I smell a Roomba mod.

Or was that the dog?

SlinkyDink

Good Job Boeing!

shamoononon

Dammit, all the Real Genius and pew pew pew jokes are taken.

I'm going to sulk now.

bobdobbs

@sqeakytoy of the apocalypse: "Why do you where that thing on your head?"

"Because if I wear it anywhere else it chafes."

ps61318

i saw them talking about this on tv the other day on Dogfights of the future or something. Basically the laser is mounted in a 747 and can shoot down enemy planes (shoot down = artistic rendering of total obliteration) from a couple miles away. its supposed to be able to track migs so who knows. They have yet to test the plane and the laser at the same time. Supposedly they are going to be able to eventually shrink the lasers down to tank mounted weapons.

bohn002

one step closer to setting phasers on stun.

im down.

pevans34

@GirlGadget:
@lawnmowerdeth:
@DeanOfAllTrades:
@sqeakytoy of the apocalypse:

Love Real Genius!

"Can you hammer a six inch spike through a board with your penis?"

"Not yet."

"A girl's got to have her standards."

zakharm

@tamoko: first the technology, then weaponize it, then work out how to deliver it.

Enola Gay.

flyboy

@weatherman: If I recall correctly, the Geneva Conventions forbid the use of lasers against human targets. They probably use "non-lethal" in the marketing just to preclude people complaining that Boeing will be helping the US to develop anti-personnel laser weapons.

dwarfgoat

You get points for the "pew pew".

xxdesmus

I love it when the Giz is shilling for the military-industrial complex... It reminds of puppies of rainbows.

Seriously, these weapons "sound" rather cool, but it just seems like more of the same shit we heard 20+ years ago with Star wars laser weapons systems, orbital battle mirrors, etc. Yes, the technology has grown by leaps and bounds, but since 9-11, it seems like we keep getting this flow of "super weapons", where only a fraction make tactical, if not economic sense.

tamoko

@middy:

c´mon.. the mirror was a joke!

jpbraconi

@MJDeviant: For many problems, destroyed == solved.

@Jeffrey McManus: Targeting is much easier when your weapon reaches its target instantaneously in a straight line (for all practical purposes).

@dwarfgoat: Only if they are explicitly used as blinding weapons.

A mirror will not work you morans! The best you could do is get it down to 10-20% absorption, which would still burn through right away.

middy

@nutbastard, Workout, dwarfgoat: actually I think the Geneva Conventions and subsequent Protocol IV prohibit blinding weapons, but not necessarily lasers for other purposes. So laser guided bombs are OK, a 25kW destructive laser might be just fine, but a laser pen used for blinding would actually be prohibited. I could be wrong - it's been a long time since I studied those provisions of the Geneva Conventions. I don't even know whether the US is a signatory to that provision. Not that it would matter - we don't really seem to care what international treaties we've signed anyway, these days.

weatherman

So how exactly does it reduce collateral damage? Wouldn't someone firing a laser gun be just as able to miss as someone firing a conventional gun?

Also, what does "damage, disable or destroy targets" actually mean? Does it vaporize flesh? Can it be put on "stun"? What are the effects on metal? Would it burn a hole through the side of a tank, or cause an explosion?

frigg

ok.. i´ll buy a mirror now....
hahaha

jpbraconi

@harshmellow:

Contrary to urban legend, a mirror will not protect you from a high powered laser, mirrors are not 100% refractive, thats why the reflection is always a little dimmer than the source.

axel000

@bobdobbs: Not so...

"This? This is ice. This is what happens to water when it gets too cold. This? This is Kent. This is what happens to people when they get too sexually frustrated."

fsusmithc2

So, if I arm myself with a mirror, will it bounce the laser back and destroy the apparatus firing it, or will the laser melt through my mirror? (note to self, don't stand directly behind mirror until I get an authoritative answer on this one!)

SalParadise

@Shai: they can put quite a few 3" holes in that tank quite quickly is my guess.

flyboy

Dude, I am so going to engrave my name on the moon with this thing!

"'...can dramatically reduce collateral damage,' said Scott Fancher, vice president and general manager of Boeing Missile Defense Systems"
- until, of course, they manage to make it small enough to be hand-held, and give it to Larry, Moe, and Curly.

FredicvsMaximvs

@frigg: If you want to take out a tank, vehicle or person using air support, you have to use a bomb or lots of bullets. All of which have a pretty good possibility to damage everything in the area... A 1s pulse from a 100kW laser would just fry everything in 3' of the target.

Of course, the spot that the laser hits may blind you too.

Shai

@jpbraconi:

right?

jpbraconi

@MJDeviant: Yes, because "solving" Mid-East peace would be so easy if we could just sit everyone down at a table for a cup of tea. In the meantime, I'm all for what are primarily defensive weapons designed to protect urban populations from random mortar fire and shelling. (e.g the Israel-Palestine border.) At this stage they are hardly highly mobile offensive weapons, require much too large power supplies and infrastructure. Which means all it would do would be to remove one highly asymmetrical, civilian-targeting weapon from the world's arsenal. And I'm not sure there's too much of a downside to that.

icelight

@avconsumer: very stealthy that one.

Major "can you see the target enemy tank at 10 miles?"

Corp "you mean the bright silver one glinting in the sun?"

fly boy

I hope I'm not breaching national security... but... mirror armor?

avconsumer

@axel000: Well crap, I guess I better stop making my awesome mirrored tank... I WAS GONNA RULE THE WORLD! I bet something would reflect this thing back on itself--how about...a diamond mirror! BWA HA HA.

@avconsumer: Watch your back.

Seriously though, I wonder if this thing has a solid beam or "bursts" (pew pew pew)?

harshmellow

@zakharm:

"So this is coherent light."

"You mean it talks?"

ackthbbft

Amicicide is the biggest issue this faces.

[www-cgsc.army.mil]

fly boy

@Git Em SteveDave: "What about that time I caught you naked with that bowl of Jello?"

It was hot and I was hungry....

qwopzxnm

@axel000: OK, if not a mirror, how about a disco ball? It rotates!

Git Em SteveDave

@fly boy: @fly boy: @
LOLKEKEKEKE

MastaFalse

@weatherman: @nutbastard:
Instant SUNTAN... catchy name!

aec007

Mirrors wouldn't be an effective defense against this laser. No mirror on Earth reflects ALL the light; it would still absorb enough to be annihilated. What you'd need is a device to bend the light around you. Perhaps some kind of portable gravity generator, or a cloaking device.

--FCOD

flyingcowofdoom

@asten77: as the speed of sound is so much slower - good luck on hearing it - when your balls fry

fly boy

That's it: I'm starting the National Laser Association. Our slogan will be "You can have my laser when you pry it out of my burnt, vaporized hands." Now, I just need to figure out a way to zombify Charlton Heston so he can be the president of our organization....

frndlybnny

Unless it sounds like the Death Star Weapon, i will be disappointed.

asten77

it rly should come with sound effects!

jpbraconi

@harshmellow:

Most likely a burst that only lasts milliseconds, although I guess you could spin that and say it's a sustained beam which lasts milliseconds. ;)

ackthbbft

@Jeffrey McManus:

I've seen test of them destroying mortars or something with them.

Also I should note this weapon seems highly impractical for a terrorist to have and move around and use.

br4nd0n

@frndlybnny: The NLA!! I'm in!!

@fly boy: Yeah... but by the time the (insert enemy of choice here..)'s figure out the effectiveness of mirror shields (many many years), conventional weaponry will be all but obsolete!!

As of 2058, all laser attack vehicles will have to have a mirror breaking sniper squad assigned (.50 cal - for the penetration capability versus 3rd generation bulletproof mirror shields). Course the Barrett Arms factory will have to dust off the old .50 cal sniper molds, since they deal strictly in lasers now.

It'll be like a whole NEW arms race. We'll eventually work our way up to nuclear capable mirror breakers....

j/k ;)

avconsumer

This would have such great applications, like ... pissing off the Google people everytime they had to take more pictures 'cause you had to go and draw crude penises on Mt. Rushmore.

MastaFalse

now all they have to do is figure out how to phase them out of our space-time and then every would be criminal on the balck market can have one_

uberfu

@qwopzxnm: Incorrect. You must first deny it, then I must admit I was lying, whereupon you utter that line. The Belgian Judge gave you 7 for effort.

Git Em SteveDave

It seems cool, but that's a LOT of electricity needed so on a ship or air defense station, but I don't think we'll see a tank with one of these babies on it anytime soon. Of course someone already thought of putting it on a spy satellite if a solar array could charge up enough juice, and in space you wouldn't have to worry about thermal blooming when taking out hostile satellites or even space junk. It would probably be about as dangerous as Zapp Brannigan at a ribbon cutting ceremony...

Nick_Bentley

You make it sound like a 100kW laser would be the most powerful laser ever built. It will be the most powerful solid-state laser ever built. Chemical lasers run at much higher power.

mwilhelm

Everytime you point a laser to a plane, God kills a kitty.

RebootEDC

@mwilhelm:
A quick look at Laser on Wikipedia indicates that the most powerful laser as of 1998 can put out 1.3 Peta Watts. That would be over 40 billion times more powerful than this measly 25kW laser. Of course, the 1.3PW laser probably only fires pico-second pulses, making its energy use the equivalent of about a single Watt-second.

trickyt

@Nick_Bentley "It seems cool, but that's a LOT of electricity needed" Actually it's very little energy. The article says it can fire for multiple seconds. Suppose it fires for 4 seconds @ 25kW. That would require 100 kW-seconds of energy, which translates to 100 / 3600 = 1 / 36 = 0.0277 kW-hours. For comparison, that's about the same amount of energy required to run one 60W lightbulb for 30 minutes. Or assuming you get charged 15 cents / kWh, one of those laser pulses will run you about half a cent.

FifiClymene

Would a prism deflect it?
Thus, the Deflector Shield.

Ducks, runs away laughing.
-Yana

YanaH

Now all they need are sharks.

Kaveh

"If I recall correctly, the Geneva Conventions forbid the use of lasers against human targets."

During my military days, we were told that the Geneva Conventions forbade the use of the .50 Cal machine gun as an antipersonnel weapon. We were told it was only to be used against military equipment - like belt buckles and helmets.

CaptainDan