Journalist Gets Blasted By the Pentagon's Pain Ray — Twice 357
dsinc writes "Wired's Spencer Ackerman voluntarily subjected himself to what the U.S. military calls the Active Denial System, an energy weapon commonly known as the 'Pain Ray' that turns electricity into millimeter wave radio frequency and blasts targets with heat. He describes it thus: 'When the signal goes out over radio to shoot me, there’s no warning — no flash, no smell, no sound, no round. Suddenly my chest and neck feel like they’ve been exposed to a blast furnace, with a sting thrown in for good measure. I’m getting blasted with 12 joules of energy per square centimeter, in a fairly concentrated blast diameter. I last maybe two seconds of curiosity before my body takes the controls and yanks me out of the way of the beam.'"
The device has been tested now on over 11,000 people, with only two serious injuries to show for it. However, the device has limitations: rainy weather decreases its effectiveness, and its "boot-up" time is 16 hours, making it useless for breaking up unexpected, impromptu mobs.
Re:Uh, what (Score:0, Insightful)
> No matter how sllloooowww the CPUs, or how inefficient the code, 16 hours isn't plausible.
Only if you're crazy enough to think the CPU is a ray gun's limitation. As opposed to, you know, energy generation itself
Re:Corner reflector (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:future weapons ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Hey, you started it.
Other unfortunate uses (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Faster than windows (Score:2, Insightful)
It's a joke. Laugh.
I saw this on TV the other day (Score:5, Insightful)
The reporter said that the injuries that were sustained were 2nd degree burns because the people didn't get out the way quick enough.
But what if you can't get out of the way? If you are trapped you could easily sustain 2nd or 3rd degree burns over quite a bit of your body - and that sort of thing is potentially lethal.
This device is non-lethal in the sense that a bullet is non-lethal. I shoot someone in the hand they probably don't die. I shoot someone in the head and they will probably die.
Injury depends on length of exposure. (Score:4, Insightful)
I last maybe two seconds of curiosity before my body takes the controls and yanks me out of the way of the beam
The person who was injured in the testing was overexposed. So if used outside the lab your going to have injured people. People will fall down and if the machine is ran to long they will be burned. This is similer to the LRAD system that uses sounds instead of microwaves. It has already been used by law enformcement and has caused hearing loss on someone who fell down.
Re:future weapons ? (Score:3, Insightful)