How long before this wonderful little toy is used in the U.S. against protestors? Or how long before police are carrying one along with their tasers and guns?

http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/a...nveils_new.html

Billed by its maker, Raytheon, as "a revolutionary less-than-lethal directed energy application," the new Silent Guardian brings Flash Gordon-style ray-gun technology to today's wars of insurgency. And best of all: it leaves no marks.

Traveling at the speed of light, the Silent Guardian's focused beam of "millimeter-wave" energy produces an intolerable burning sensation, "causing the targeted individuals to instinctively flee or take cover." Because it only penetrates the skin to 1/64th of an inch, the beam causes no lasting damage (other than the psychological sort).

Also known as extremely high frequency (EHF), millimeter waves – which are slightly shorter in wavelength than microwaves -- have been used in radio astronomy and remote sensing. The Air Force has reportedly developed a wider-range version of the Guardian, known as the "Active Denial System," which produces what researchers like to call "the Goodbye effect."

Part of the "Directed Energy Solutions" program at Raytheon (which has requested that journalists not describe it as a "ray gun"), a tabletop version of the Silent Guardian was tested recently by Michael Hanlon, a reporter with the U.K. newspaper The Daily Mail. "This machine has the ability to inflict limitless, unbearable pain," Hanlon reported after momentarily feeling the beam on a fingertip. The "wave of agony" it unleashes has a range of more than 250 meters.

"I have been in front of the full-sized system and, believe me, you just run. You don't have time to think about it - you just run," Raytheon executive George Svitak told Hanlon.

One possible use of the Guardian is in crowd-control situations like those faced by the U.S. military in Iraq. "The system is available now and ready for action," Raytheon promotional materials state.

Scary sh*t.
Here's the interview mentioned from the Daily Mail:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/arti...in_page_id=1965

What an excellent defense...
If EVERYONE had one of these.

I wonder if metal shields the effect.

This device could put everybody
on equal footing, as long as it
was available to all people,
not just a select psychopathic few.

imo, lunk

If you are thinking of some kind of wearable protection, I would think you'd have to cover your whole body, including the head. Any police or soldier willing to use this one people would have no problem shooting at a person's head, if they noticed the person not responding when hit in the lower body.

We will end up wearing tin foil for real...

OMG! Don't you already do??!!
What a breakneck frivolity!

with hat at least: Carl

What a sight that would be, a street demonstration by truthers all wrapped in tin foil running away from the police...

As the cactus has its' thorns,
and the skunk has its' odor,
and the jellyfish has its' stinging tentacles,
every human could have their
own personal mini-microwave
pain radiating device to defend themselves
with.

Now that it is known to exist,
it wont take long for someone
to figure out a way to mod a
microwave oven into one of these.

This could make firearms defunct.
as long as everybody had one.

imo, lunk

From what I've read about this thing is that you don't want any metal on you or around you if you get zapped with this beam. It tends to burn the hell out of you with any metal you have near your body.

Cool, so a metal gun would be useless,
as a defense against it!

I want one, now,
more than a gun.

Please, this is only

imho.

cheerfully, lunk

How bout a mirror?

It would have to be a mirror
that reflects "slightly shorter
than microwave" radiation.

Another idea is to build a
device that will fill the gaps
in the wave form.
A sort of white noise generator.

lunk

Hey- not a bad idea...
Zen zey'd zap zemselves !

We're gonna need some thinker aluminum armor then since it does well against heat

Don't put metal in a microwave.

Well, then how on earth can they claim this thing doesn't leave marks, or is harmless? You mean to tell me they are going to announce to a crowd before they shoot them with this thing, that they should take off glasses, remove keys from pockets, take off jewelry, etc.? LMAO.

Nearly everybody wears some form of jewelry, watch, etc., and a huge chunk of the population wears glasses. Not to mention contacts, which someone here mentioned could be a problem.