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I would never be comfortable having an exposed, multi-watt laser in my living room. One failure of the (most likely software) safety device and it will burn a n
by avian 9y ago
I would never be comfortable having an exposed, multi-watt laser in my living room. One failure of the (most likely software) safety device and it will burn a new blind spot on your retina in a fraction of a second.
Having had a brief working experience in a lab involving high-powered lasers, I have an unreasonable fear of these things. A random beam reflection can hurt your eyes in a painless way. You only notice the damage later when things start disappearing from your field of view (similarly to how you're not normally aware of your natural blind spot). I've been told that everyone that retires from that field of research has had holes burned into their retinas despite strict safety procedures.
- userbinator 9y agoThe article makes brief mention of this... the emitter detects this within a fraction of a second and deploys a shutter to block the charging beam before the person can come in contact with it A mechanical shutter also seems strange --- cutting power to the laser would probably be faster by at least an order of magnitude if not more, if it's a solid-state type. As the memorable sign says, "Warning: Do not look into beam with remaining eye."
- TheOtherHobbes 9y agoThis project screams lack of imagination and downright incompetence. You need case-by-case legal paperwork to do high power (i.e. more than a few tens of mW) laser shows in the US if there's any chance of the beams scanning the audience. The idea that you can set up a 2W laser in your living room and make it 100% safe by adding mechanical movement detection is outstandingly stupid and ill-advised.
- sandworm101 9y agoNot to mention the potential weaponization of these things. Forget IoT botnets, hack this and you could probably start fires.
- matte_black 9y agoOr create laser turrets that detect eyes and faces and immediately blind people in physical denial of service attacks.
- ben_w 9y agoI’ve been concerned about that scenario for about two years now. Didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to give anyone ideas, but oh well.
- matte_black 9y agoI believe someone has made a prototype before. It used to be a turret that fired paintballs.
- logicallee 9y agoDon't worry there's all sorts of insanely nightmarish stuff nobody does because come on. (Also geneva convention.) But yeah when you have these nightmare ideas better not to share ;)
- taneq 9y ago> I have an unreasonable fear No you don't, you have a very reasonable and justified fear of them. High powered lasers are scary for precisely the reasons you mention. I'd want to be very confident that there was a hard-wired fail-safe system which absolutely reliably shut it off before any harm could be done. (Here's another scary scenario: Suppose the system and guard beams are working fine but someone puffs glitter into the air? Zap. Eyesight gone.)
- extrapickles 9y agoIt gets even better if the guard beam is a different frequency than the power delivery beam as the glitter could be transparent enough to the guard beam, but not transparent to the main beam. They also don’t seem to be addressing the problem of the solar panel getting dirty/scratched and becoming more reflective. This is a much harder problem to solve correctly than a simple guard beam. Disclaimer: I’m involved with a company making high power versions of this tech for industrial/military uses.
- trevyn 9y ago>I would never be comfortable having an exposed, multi-watt laser in my living room. Until the rest of the world has an exposed, multi-watt laser in their living room without incident, and then you'll be like "oh, guess it works." Same with airplanes. "I'm never getting on that", until you see millions of people do it and live.
- skolemtotem 9y agoYeah, I guess we risk-averse types should just wait and see.
- logfromblammo 9y agoAnd continue to see, long after the early adopters can't.
- CapitalistCartr 9y agoTitanic, Apollo 1, bright white teeth, Fen-fen. Yeah, early adoption can be interesting. I'm a technophile, but we shouldn't turn a "blind eye" to its risks.
- trevyn 9y agoAlso remember the risk of risk aversion: leading a dull, curmudgeonly life. In general, I've found that the more you understand in detail how a technology works, the more comfortable with it you become.
- jsgo 9y agoPerhaps, but this isn't a case of a technology that supersedes another in a meaningful way. Sure, plugging the phone in or placing it on a Qi charger is a hassle, but it is a working solution. This isn't quite like the alleged cancer risk of cell phones: there's really no other technology that competes with cell phones at this point, so it is a bit easier to take on the risk.
- phyzome 9y agoAnd I'm pretty sure someone could accidentally a wave a fork into the path of the main beam without it intersecting a guard beam, based on that photo. -.-
- logicallee 9y agoI was thinking "what if you increase the frequency to where the eye doesn't care" then I thought about how radio waves pass through our bodies and I remembered: wait a second, there is just one radiomagnetic spectrum!!! As a page I googled states: "Optical radiation called light is the same thing as x-ray radiation is the same thing as microwave radiation is the same as infrared radiation is the same as radio waves." 0f course, when I think of radio waves they radiate out all over the place - but so does most light that isn't a laser. Is there a "laser" in the higher, safe radio frequencies (which just pass through the body)? By laser I mean it's super focused with very tight parallel rays. Could this be put in place of this system? After all the hard part of this system is aiming the laser, which this article says is done through active "sonar" (an acoustic beacon which is then localized). Why not then target it with a radio "laser"?
- m-watson 9y agoThere are longer wavelength amplification by stimulated emission of radiation (LASER without the L for light) devices but there are technological limitations like cavity size (often larger) and lower power. An example used in astronomy is the MASER: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maser
- lawlessone 9y agoIf they use one that can pass through you harmlessly most of it will probably also pass through the device wasting energy.
- logicallee 9y agohow do you figure? we aren't made of metal.
- rm_-rf_slash 9y agoMy dad’s vision blue-shifted over a career of laser research. He can see a bit into the ultraviolet spectrum but he almost cannot distinguish red at all. This is apparently not too rare among people with a lot of laser exposure, which inevitably crosses eyes.