Youtuber WorldScott lined up a string of 100 red balloons held down with specially modified glasses of water to keep them from blowing away as balloons pop around them. Once the 100 balloons were set up, the laser was switched on and the beam was fired through what appears to be some sort of magnifying glass. The balloons pop surprisingly quickly, considering how far away some of them are.

The laser used is a Spyder III Krypton in the 750mW – 1000mW power range. The last balloon definitely needed the longest time to explode, but it did eventually go. The video has been submitted to the Guinness Book of World Records to see if it is in fact a world record. Record or not, it was certainly cool. Be sure to check out the video and see it for yourself.

These lightsaber replacements seem to light up and down smoothly, just like in the movies, thanks to “an ultra smooth magnetic gravity system.” Just shut up and take my money now.

[via Wired via Ubergizmo]

“This was definitely a world first,” Tipple told Wired. “Initially, I told them no. I thought it was a frivolous stunt. But then I considered that it would give us an opportunity to test our clips and attachments, and whatever is attached to that clip, I really don’t care. It was a low-powered laser that couldn’t be dangerous to anyone, and there’s actually useful application of having a laser attached to the animal.”

The lemon shark was chosen because it has predictable behavior and isn’t quite so aggressive. Let’s just stop there. No more arming sharks with lasers. Next it will be octopi with a laser for each tentacle. Things could get ugly.

[via Wired via Obvious Winner]

I love how the guns’ barrel acts as its battery compartment. I don’t love the laser. It’s BRIGHT. Seriously you might want to wear goggles just for the video. You definitely should wear goggles when firing this pistol because it has a 1.5W blue laser, enough to instantly blind eyes and burn skin.

Priebe said he sold the unit shown in the video for €600 (~$790 USD), but he can also make a “slightly simpler version” for less. I wonder what he’ll make for $5. A drawing of the gun perhaps? If you have more money than I do, just drop him a line on YouTube or Facebook. Also give me some of your riches.

MIT announced back in 2010 that it was developing the special camera that would use light echoes to see around corners. It took two years and the researchers are now showing off the camera in action. The camera fires 50 individual femtosecond laser pulses in a burst at 60 different times at various spots on a wall. The imaging sensor then picks up the light assets reflected back to the camera and uses complicated algorithms to piece together an image of what’s going on around the corner.

It’s easy to see practical military and police applications for such a camera. However, it currently takes several minutes for the image sensor to piece the image together, and the image isn’t exactly accurate as of yet. The MIT researchers hope to cut that to 10 seconds to make it usable in the real world. Ten seconds is still a long time and things around the corner can change significantly and 10 seconds making me think that the camera needs to get down into the one to second range for most practical applications.

[via Scientific American via PetaPixel]

The dumb fish doesn’t care of course. He just doesn’t want a cap popped in his fin – or he thinks it’s some sort of glowing worm he can eat. As soon as he starts playing, he probably forgets about the gun anyway, because fish are (don’t hate me for saying this marine biologists)… kinda stupid.

[via VVV via Geekosystem]

An 83-year-old woman needed a new lower jawbone last year for transplant and instead of a traditional implant, the medical team used a 3D printed jawbone manufactured by LayerWise. The transplant was carried out in the Netherlands last June and it has just now been announced. The implant was printed out of a titanium powder using a laser, layer-by-layer until the finished product was completed. The implant is a complicated part with articulated joints and cavities to provoke muscle attachment along with grooves to direct the regrowth of nerves and veins.

According to the team, it took 33 layers of titanium melted using the laser for 1 mm of height. That means that the finished jawbone had many thousands of laser passes. One of the interesting parts of the 3D printed jawbone is that it has a special double bridge that was attached and false teeth screwed in the that dental bridge. Also interesting is that the finished titanium jawbone weighs 107g, which is about one-third heavier than the replaced bone.

[via BBC]

The 4 inch-long bullet was invented by Red Jones and Brian Kast, who aside from being engineers are also hunters. So if you hate this tech, blame the game that they couldn’t hit. Although to say that this is overcompensating would be an understatement: the high-tech ammo has an optical sensor, an 8-bit CPU that handles “guidance and control electronics” and electromagnetic actuators that control its fins.

The bullet is meant to be used with smooth-bore firearms, i.e. ones that don’t have grooves inside their barrels. The grooves give spin to normal bullets to help them fly straight, but since this bullet literally has a mind of its own it doesn’t need the spin. The screenshot above shows the path left by a prototype fitted with an LED, proving that its electronics and battery are not destroyed when the bullet is fired. That is one weird trajectory.

Sandia’s press release also said that the bullet’s flight gets steadier with distance, so it’s better suited for long-range targets. The current prototype isn’t up to the U.S. military’s standards in terms of velocity, but its inventors are confident that they can make it go faster by using customized gunpowder. Or they could invent bullet time. Check the link below for more details.

[via Sandia National Labs via BBC News]

Developed by Japan’s Burton, Inc., and based on technologies from AIST and Keio University, this 3D display can display images not just in the air, but underwater too. The system uses “by focusing laser light to produce plasma excitation from the oxygen and nitrogen in the air.” It’s capable of producing about 50,000 dots per second at a frame rate of somewhere around 10-15 fps. While their demonstration uses simple geometric shapes and words, I think they should replace the image with Princess Leia.

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I wonder if this technology would fit inside an astromech droid.

[via DigInfo.TV]

I understand how some people would want cosmetic surgery performed to reduce their waistlines or to make their noses pointier or to lift up their sagging skin (although I’m not for it at all.) I also understand that some people want to change their eye color sometimes and use contact lenses to do so.

What I don’t really get is how far some people will go to make such physical changes – like undergoing a laser procedure to permanently change their eye color from brown to blue.

The technology is developed by Dr. Gregg Homer from the Stroma Medical in California, and he calls it the Lumineyes technology. The procedure makes use of lasers that remove the brown pigment called melanin from the top layer of the iris. The color then slowly turns to blue over the course of a couple of weeks, as you can see above. And this change won’t come cheap, as it’s going to be priced at $5,000, although you might have to wait for a couple of years to get the procedure done if you’re interested.

Dr. Homer explains: “A blue eye is not opaque, you can see deeply into it, while a brown eye is very opaque. I think there is something very meaningful about this idea of having open windows to the soul.”

I don’t know about you, but I’d rather stick with my brown eyes. (Destiny’s Child wrote a song about brown eyes once, and I don’t think having an opaque eye color is that bad.)

[via The Daily Mail via Dvice]

Patrick says that all of his wristbow’s parts are homemade. It even has a laser sight, which is powered by two AA-batteries which are tucked on his palm along with the laser sight’s toggle. The wristbow’s bolts are made of carbon fiber tubing with brass and steel tips, although crossbow connoisseurs might balk at his bolts because they have fletching – the feathery things near the back of the arrow – which bolts are not supposed to have. Watch the not-bolts and the wristbow destroy things in the video below:

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That’s an ultra-silent crossbow. It didn’t make a sound even when it hit the can! Oh. Yeah, yeah I knew that there really was no audio the first time around. Heheh. Heh. Patrick says he’ll make an instructable soon so that Deus Ex fans can augment their cosplay with their own wrist-mounted crossbow. Who knows, maybe Patrick will even accept custom orders like he does with his other creations.

[via MoHacks]

The remote also has three buttons – left, right and turbo – but it seems like using the light alone is fine, especially since the car is dual-sided and is totally fine with being flipped over. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t designed with accuracy and fine control in mind. Part of the fun of playing with a Lazer Stunt Chaser would be wondering just how far it can follow the light. Watch it zip around in the demo video below:

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Quite the suicidal toy eh? Here’s another video, this time with bigger ramps and other Lazer Stunt Chaserz in the mix:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

A flying version of this would be awesome, although I guess it would be a lot more dangerous too. You can order the Lazer Stunt Chaser from Amazon for about $54 (USD). It comes with a charger and a stunt ramp. Next time your cat is being a dick, just point the Lazer’s remote at it. Just kidding. Don’t do that. Don’t point it at animals or humans. Especially at human crotches. But feel free point your browser to the official website for more info.

[via Gizmag via Oh Gizmo!]

So what’s an energy-saving alternative that will look hip, colorful, and futuristic on your wrist? It’s designer David Blanc’s Elusive watch that’s still quite elusive nowadays, considering that it’s not actually being manufactured yet.

Here’s another possible reason why the watch was named like so: the watch’s face is also elusive. That’s because it doesn’t have a face – just a hole where a face is supposed to be. This is where the battery-saving stuff comes in.

Instead of displaying the time on a LED or LCD 24/7 or having two hands running across it at any given moment, you have to insert your finger into the face to have it displayed: one finger for the time, and two for the date. After it’s triggered, the time would be projected onto your skin using a tiny, harmless laser beam. Pretty neat concept, eh?

[via Yanko Design]

BMW says that the laser is the next logical step in vehicle lighting. When you say “laser,” I think of the lasers like Wicked Lasers sells that can blind you and destroy orbiting satellites. That is not what BMW has in mind though. The light created by BMW’s laser headlights would not be harmful to people or animals and would not blind oncoming drivers.

The light would be converted first so that it is suitable for road use. BMW says that an LED can create 100 lumens of light per watt while a laser could produce 170 lumens per watt. However, since lasers can produce nearly parallel beams of light, they could be as much as a thousand times brighter than the LEDs used today.

The first car to showcase the technology will be the BMW i8 concept. However, BMW is working on commercializing laser diode technology now, and it could see production in a few years time.

The laser has a range of 85 miles, which means the beam could leave our atmosphere. Therefore, Wicked says that you should not aim the laser at satellites in orbit because it could mess up the sensors on an orbiting satellite. The laser could also blind pilots.

The thing has 1W of power. That makes it 8,000 times brighter staring directly at the sun and it has 86 million lux. The laser uses special thermopile detector that lowers power to keep temperatures in line. The body of the laser is aluminum for rugged design. It sells for $999.95 (USD) in 1W form, $299.95 in 300mW, with a 500mW middle ground for $499.95.

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I doubt that’s ever going to become a reality. But what scientists are coming close to doing is coming up with a laser that, when shot at clouds, can induce precipitation. In simpler words, that translates to “make it rain.”

Humans making it rain? That doesn’t like it’s something new, I know, but this method is. Traditionally, man can induce rain by using a method called cloud seeding. It’s basically injecting a certain chemical or substance such as silver iodide that serves as the “seed” to make it rain. However, some of these chemicals (specifically, silver iodide) are toxic and have detrimental effects on humans and animals.

The team of scientists from the University of Geneva have recently published their results detailing how they were able to induce the formation of droplets of water in the air, which is the first step to creating rain itself. After over 113 hours of firing from a mobile laser lab, the team discovered that the laser was able to create particles of nitric acid in the air, which can jumpstart the condensation process.

[via Wired]

As you can see it is needlessly, freakishly thin. I don’t think even Apple, the company that made the anemic MacBook Air, would want to create a device this skinny, never mind if it’s even possible with today’s technology. Some of you may find it nice to look at, but personally if I had any device this thin I’d be worried about damaging it all the time. But I like the other features that Aatma Studio made up:

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The holographic display is really sweet. Combine that with the laser keyboard and this is practically a tablet. I think Aatma Studio made this to ride on Apple’s bandwagon and use it to show off their 3D animation skills. If so, consider it a job well done.

[via Into Mobile]

Just like Stark, Priebe built his dangerous toy by hand. It uses a laser diode from a Casio projector, mounted to a brass housing that Priebe made just for the glove. Two Li-ion batteries provide enough power for about an hour of lasering. So how dangerous is it? Here’s Pop Sci’s take on the Laser Glove: “In the U.S., the maximum strength for consumer laser pointers is typically five milliwatts; Priebe’s handheld laser is 1,000 milliwatts, enough to instantly blind anyone not wearing special safety glasses.” Yikes.

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Priebe is actually taking orders for the glove, although I don’t know how many units he plans to make and how much he’s asking for one. Just drop him a message on his YouTube channel for details. And get a pair of those special safety glasses will you?

[via Make: & Popular Science]

Styropyro used a 700mW laser diode from a 12x Blu-ray burner; if you don’t have a spare burner around, he suggests hitting up Modwerx for the diode. You can even find stronger lasers at that website. Watch the video to find out more about the conversion and to see exactly how dangerous this real-life laser gun is.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

I wonder if you can somehow fit this bad boy into a gun mod. If you have a replica of the neat Dead Space plasma cutter, Kipkay already showed how you can convert that to a laser gun.

[via Hack A Day]

The system uses a camera to see where the turn lane is and then has three laser scanners in the front of the car. The scanners are able to map the area 100M in front of the car and can sense cars, trucks, and motorcycles. The driver of the car has a HUD that would give warnings if they were in danger of a collision.

If the driver is still rolling into traffic and the systems senses an oncoming car, it will apply the brakes if the vehicle is below 10km/h. I guess that is the threshold to keep the system from hitting the brakes on you if you are trying to zip through traffic. The brake can be cleared by pressing the pedal if the system applies it.