Military looks to stop drivers with laser blasts

Laser dazzlers -- or "optical distraction devices," as the military prefers to call them -- have proven invaluable in Iraq as a way of warning drivers to stop at checkpoints. (A flash of bright light does tend to give people pause.) But as Danger Room reported, several U.S. troops have suffered serious eye injuries from laser "friendly fire" incidents. So the U.S. military's Joint Nonlethal Weapons Directorate is developing a new type of laser which aims to be both safer and more effective than existing dazzlers, I report in New Scientist. Whether it will work is still an open question.

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