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Just when you think the StarTrek-influence has gone on long enough you get this.

While only in prototype form and years away from fielding, US Air Force unveiled hand-held laser gun weapon, known as the Personnel Halting and Stimulation Response (PHaSR) system. The PHaSR is about the same size and weight of a fully loaded M60 machine gun – around 9 kg – but shoots a low-power beam of laser light instead of bullets. The light it generates is capable of temporarily impairing an individual's vision, much like the disorienting glare one sees when looking into the sun.

Cool, yet another piece to test, in Iraq maybe?

This is pretty funny, actually. What they are talking about is an overgrown "hand-held" flashlight, for which someone has cobbled together a silly name that fits the acronym of a true hand-held engine of destruction made famous by an old TV series. This marvel of modern weaponry won't be available for "several years yet," and it causes "temporary blindness." A couple of "prototypes" will be built.

It's a public relations stunt, and probably obsolete today. If I want to "blind somebody temporarily" I can always use a laser pointer that costs a buck and weighs six ounces. But the Air Force can probably use this silliness to recruit a few more starstruck kids addicted to reruns of the many Star Trek series.

Read more about the green light: US military sets laser PHASRs to stun and New technology dazzles aggressors