...causing mahem with my red lens sunglasses....

And seeing as you're such an expert, how would they construct a pair of glasses that would block out that particular "frequency" and just happen to know that this particular brand of cops would be using it instead of a real gun?

Eyelids !!!!!!

... would be what would happen if this were used in a crowded hall of mirrors?

Sounds like a Minority Report style Sick Stick.

I have the same problem with this that I do with tasers. Because it is non-lethal, it is presented to people as okay to use. It's just another means for people to physically hurt you with less consequence to themselves. "Pain compliance" as the police call it: hurt someone until they obey.

Paris, because I need someone to make me smile with stories like this.

Err too much Star Trek mate, if the frequency is changed it would'nt work as it would appear to be frequency specific

Who on earth needs to make me throw up from nearly 2.5 kms away?!

Anyway, isn't this a bit similar to, for example, watching Jason (of 'and the argonauts' fame - remember that?) fight medusa?! Or, the ace 'Blink' episode of Dr Who?

Watch any crowd spill from a British pub at closing time, loads of people may be seen staggering and puking everywhere....obviously some evil genius at work...

1) These are going to end up in other people's hands, and then this will be fun, because we'll have people making others puke up from a mile away. There'll be no way to find out who it is.

2) Innocent bystanders? If this has to hit eyes, then it either has to be very accurate or have a wide dispersion field.

3) Sunglasses/spectacles/goggles? What do they do to this. If the glass in spectacles causes a refraction, is that going to seriously mess up this device, perhaps turning it into a blinding ray? My bet is research not done.

4) This will be a new (and quite untraceable since it leaves no output) way for the police to torture people. Anyone who thinks they won't use it to do that should read about the way the police act, in news stories for example.

@Karim Bourouba

.. there is no longer such a thing as an innocent bystander - just go to any (legal) protest carrying a camera and you'll find out..

"the threats vision is temporarily impaired, their balance is effected, and they become affected by nausea"

I'm pretty sure I was an unwilling test subject at 2am, the 1st of January 2009, in central London :(

another long-distance intimidation tool, a non-lethal crowd control alternative in addition to all the others already out there. consider these implemented by the rozzers at your next 'peaceful' demonstation/riot, mixed with the standard mace, batons, tear gas, rubber bullets, water cannons, attack dogs, horses and maybe other future microwave/sonic/dizzy/burny/puke rays...

What happens if you run away? I.e. Turn your back to the beam?

"There have been efforts to make dazzlers using lasers, but LEDs could be a safer choice. "Getting an eye-safe wavelength with a laser has been very difficult," Shwaery says. Because laser beams are energetic and focused, they could cause permanent damage to the eye."

http://tinyurl.com/39gzvp

This is the old vomit flashlight using lasers instead, hopefully without blinding some of the people.

If it truely is a laser based product then polaroid glasses would sort this out as the beam will be polarised to a vertical or horizontal plane.

are normally visible in daylight (far better than red ones used by police attached to MP5's).

Also, the military safety glasses (normal or rubber band style) are normally laser safe so would block this as well (laser's from red to blue use a wide frequency range and they are all blocked).

So, can't use it on a US military uprising then......

Speaking of uprising...

makes me wanna puke

"Hmm, do you really think that a company making a product like this will not have thought about rotating the frequency upon which the puke ray is transmitted?"

Yes, I do. I think they made it work one way and didn't worry their pretty little heads about anyone who would work around it technically. This is in line with the folk who originally made wireless phones so you could listen to them using a shortwave radio, and made subway cards so you could add cash to or clone them fraudulently, and are making identity cards you can read from a dozen meters away using ordinary equipment.

"What happens if you run away? I.e. Turn your back to the beam?"

In this case, if you were a threat, you've just been controlled, and the device was successful.

From the article: "... the threats vision is temporarily impaired, their balance is effected, and they become affected by nausea..."

Apparently it also messes with your ability to manage the definitions of affect and effect, possibly leading to getting it right and wrong in two different instances of the same usage in a single sentence. Apostrophe loss is another reported side effect.

Paris, because she cures apostrophe loss, if you know what I mean.

no more uprisings from now on.

Just like tasers, they're "non-lethal" until someone is attacked who suffers from some medical condition that causes them to die after repeated retching.

And just like tasers, just because it's described as "non-lethal" will mean it's not used in place of deadly force, as was the original intention. The weapons' use will be extended to other forms of control, more as a substitute for spanking than anything else, because the wielder of non-lethal force gets a kick out of watching people suffer.

High-way to the Dazer Zone™!

Gonna take a ride into the Dazer Zone™...

Mine's the polychromatic one.

We already know enough to build one, people.

You need:

1. a bright light source. It will look like a pinpoint, or torch lens at most. So yes, we could use green lasers, but ultra-bright green LEDs will work. Won't get the 2 mile range though.

2. probably a rolling series of frequencies to flicker the light over. Somewhere around the 50-60hz range, plus a few over/under tones. Basically the range that induces epilepsy. Or just project a frantic network game of Doom2 in 320x240 at them, that used to do it for me.

Soldering irons and PIC microcontrollers at the ready!

All this talk of lasers not being tunable is wrong. Argon ion lasers are tunable across a large part of the visible spectrum, we had one at uni, it was cool :)

Even less special lasers are tunable within certain limits, changing the tilt on the stepped grating at the back of a gas laser for instance.

If you want to go diode then I guess you could have a gattling arrangement of frequency shift crystals, though this may be too course.

As for "the military have glasses that are laser safe" that is a very subjective statement. Even glasses tuned to stop the wavelength of light I work with are no use if you cop it straight in the eye. If they could stop it then they'd be black and thick.

If you stop all the wavelengths then your glasses will be black.

I'm only trying to correct a few statements, don't think for one minute that I think this thing has a chance in hell of actually working. Reflective glasses, turning your back, or even trying to aim the damn thing across 2.4Km is going to be a show stopper.

By the way, I've managed to hit someone whilst being sick (there was beer involved:)

I suggest old kind of pedestrian reflectors, the kind thats made of prismed plastic. Reflects light straight back to light source.

I wonder how the police will be able to claim this causes no permanent harm from one corner of their mouth and scold kids with laserpointers for causing permaneent eye harm for the other corner? A new tongue twiter and scitchoprenia sympton of police force?

....Where did i put my sharks!

> Surely just wear glasses that block out that frequency of light...

The typical relatively harmless person this will be used on won't be premeditating or expecting it to happen. They, like many I guess, will fall for the hype that this is some device to defend against the "vinnie jones on a bad day" - and is something they expect the police to use on "other people"

Rather than "weedy student / lady shopper who refuses to leave the store without a refund" that it'll really be used for.

This might lead to less tragicomic cases of disproportionate tazer force.

Realistically though, it probably just means more inventive potential for sadistic cruelty in reponse to minor traffic violations.

Hey, maybe we can combine this with electric shock administration and intense epidermal pain-inducing microwaves to sort out the… ah… huge problem… of subjugating the man on the street?