EnergyWeapon
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Northrop Grumman creates 100 kilowatt laser, could usher in World War III
Northrop Grumman's been plugging along on this little project for years now, and at long last, the company has surpassed the milestone that it's been striving for. According to a new release that's just beaming with pride, the defense company has reportedly achieved 100 kilowatts from a solid-state laser. For those unfamiliar with the back story, 100 kilowatts is the level needed to create a laser gun that could actually do more than cause temporary blindness on the battlefield. Sadly, it seems that lethal laser pointers are still a good ways away, with Dan Wildt, vice president of Northrop's directed energy systems program, noting that "it is still a little heavy and a little big." It's all good, Northrop -- we're down with backpack weapons, too.[Via CNET]
Inventors claim to turn 300 microwaves into megawatt energy weapon
If you happen to have say, 300 microwaves kicking around between you and your friends, it turns out that you'd have a large part of the ingredients necessary for a pretty substantial weapon. That is, according to two New Mexican inventors, who recently filed a patent for a "high-power microwave system employing a phase-locked array of inexpensive commercial magnetrons." Translated into English that basically means that these guys claim you can combine the magnetrons (the bits that generate the actual microwave that cooks your popcorn) from a bunch of consumer-grade microwaves and tweak 'em a bit to develop a megawatt-level death ray, or in military/legal parlance, a "directed energy weapon system." Yeah, we've seen energy weapons (or tools, if you prefer) before, but this is probably one of the first times that we've seen ordinary kitchen technology more complicated than a knife turn into a seriously lethal weapon. [Via New Scientist]
