Laserati

"Plausible deniability" is an added benefit of laser weapons according to US Air Force Research Laboratory. via: NewScientist

Cynthia Kaiser, chief engineer of the US Air Force Research Laboratory's Directed Energy Directorate, used the phrase "plausible deniability" to describe the weapon's benefits in a briefing (powerpoint format) on laser weapons to the New Mexico Optics Industry Association in June.

John Corley, director of USAF's Capabilities Integration Directorate, used the same phrase to describe the weapon's benefits at an Air Armament Symposium in Florida in October 2007 (see page 15, pdf format).

As the term suggests, "plausible deniability" is used to describe situations where those responsible for an event could plausibly claim to have had no involvement in it.

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Drifting Off Into The Night, originally uploaded by simosean.

Rochester police have a new tool to solve crime. The city is testing a new 3D laser scanner. The scanner made by Leica Geosystems is on loan from the A & E Television Network. It is part of the Rochester Police Departments agreement to participate in the reality drama “Crime 360″.

Rochester is one of only six departments in the entire country to use the scanner. Basically, it allows police to take a 3D picture of a scene. “When you have a live scan and you can recreate the scene the way it was right after it happened, the chances of solving the crime increase,” said Sgt. Mike Coon, Rochester Police Department. More at News10NBC.com

ABC News: Forestry Tasmania has found laser beams can more accurately map forest terrain, to help identify which trees should be protected for their carbon stores.

radioactive margarita, originally uploaded by stewedman.

It is not so difficult to have your home laser show.

The idea of having your own laser show can seem a bit far-fetched, but just think about how cool it could be! It may sound hard to build, but an inventor named Geoff Milburn has come up with some easy instructions.

By using materials like a lab style laser, a diffraction grating, an old pair of headphones and a few electrical parts, the device can be fairly simple to put together. All you need to do is to be able to wire a few things here and there and also do a bit of soldering. But before you start, you should make sure to read up on laser safety.

via: Inventorspot

The ultrafast laser market will reach about $260 million in 2008, with healthy growth expected through to 2012 according to analyst Strategies Unlimited.

I have noticed in previous laser conferences that there are more and more companies producing on ultrafast fiber lasers. A recent report by Strategies Unlimited is on this topic. The report is not freely available. But we can know something from this interview from optics.org. The interview article is free, but you have to register. Following is the part that is most interesting to me.

How does the ultrafast market sustain such a large number of players?

There are now 38 companies offering an ultrafast laser product. In my opinion, that's a bit too many, especially when you consider that Coherent and Newport have the dominant market shares today. It is a lot more than I expected when we started looking into this project, but a lot of companies survive by serving a niche and with very tight financing. Many of them do this by offering ultrafast as an extension of their other pulsed laser products. What is surprising is how many of these little companies have been around for many years. Only a very few can be considered start-up companies entirely focused on ultrafast.

Do you expect to see new entrants and what do they have to do to survive?

When it comes to the laser business, you always see new entrants, but the venture-funded start-up is a very tough way to go, because the application development is so slow. The supplier must find a customer to design the laser into a system, and then the system has to be sold to end users. In between, there may be regulatory hurdles and extensive qualifications. It's easier to do if the laser supplier has a tight budget, lots of patience and maybe some other products already selling.

Do you expect to see any consolidation?

"Consolidation" is not the word that comes to my mind, at least not in the sense of a significant reduction in the number of suppliers. There are no strong economies of scale in the ultrafast business that would force that. The intellectual property is critical, though, so there certainly will be some licensing and even acquisitions to get access to that. I don't consider that consolidation - that is just the usual business of horse trading.

General Motors Corp. researchers are working on a windshield that combines lasers, infrared sensors and a camera to take what’s happening on the road and enhance it, so aging drivers with vision problems are able to see a little more clearly. More at CNN.com

The first passenger plane equipped with a system to repel shoulder-fired missiles successfully completed its flight, a British defense and aerospace company announced Wednesday.

The system aims to protect against fire from missile launchers like these, which were used to fire at an Israeli plane.

Defense system was tested on an American Airlines flight that took off July 11, according to a statement from BAE Systems.

The plane flew from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport to Los Angeles International Airport in California, the company said.

The JetEye system works by detecting the heat-seeking missiles and then firing a laser, which diverts the missile.

American Airlines refused to make the system mandatory on all trips but agreed to cooperate with the tests.

The flight represents the final phase of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Counter-Man-Portable Air Defense System program, designed to test the suitability of missile-protection equipment for commercial aircraft.

VIa: CNN.com

HOW do you study several thousand dinosaur footprints spread across 2 kilometres of a soft-rock outcrop at a slant of 60 degrees? Zap them with a laser.

The footprints, at the Fumanya site in the southern Pyrenees in Spain, record the passage of huge long-necked dinosaurs called titanosaurs across a muddy area about 70 million years ago. The problem is that the footprint layer is soft and crumbling, and climbing the steep surface could damage the tracks.

So Phil Manning of the University of Manchester, UK, and his team scanned the surface with LIDAR - a laser technique that maps features in a similar way to radar. The scanner and allied software generated a detailed 3D contour map of the surface and prints (Palaeontology, DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4983.2008.00789.x).

Via: NewScientist