… It seems the lasers we have today would be capable of doing many of the things we see in Star Wars. We could injure or kill people; we could burn structures or melt holes in walls; we could destroy targeted areas of spaceships, assuming we could keep a beam on them for long enough. The main difference between Star Wars lasers and ours is the size. While we can create lasers that emit extremely powerful energies, we need to pump great energies into them to make them work. That energy source takes space, which the Death Star, at least, provides.

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Oh sure, she looks friendly enough. But don’t let her matronly, argyle looks fool you. A retired Columbia University Professor, Gertrude Neumark Rothschild, is looking to extract some cold, hard cash from a who’s who of consumer electronics giants. Otherwise, they can forget about importing their goods into the U.S. Rothschild’s complaint, filed with the U.S. International Trade Commission on Feb. 20, claims that some 30 companies are violating a patent she owns for light-emitting and laser diodes. Today, the ITC has agreed to investigate the matter. It’s worth noting that Rothschild has already successfully tested the legislative waters with lawsuits against Philips and others–the Philips matter was settled out of court earlier this month.

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