Tom Clancy Drool-Fest

HEL-MD might be just what the doctor ordered, assuming you have a drone problem:

Boeing is building a laser cannon for the U.S. Army, and the new weapon has now proved it will be as capable at sea as on land. The High Energy Laser Mobile Demonstrator (HEL MD)—basically a high-energy laser mounted on top of a big truck—was successfully used to blast some UAV drones and 60mm mortars out of the Florida sky earlier this year, Boeing announced Thursday.

This test was done in a windy and foggy environment, an essential step to proving the technology is useful for naval deployment. The HEL MD used a 10-kilowatt laser—a much less powerful version of what it will eventually fire—to “successfully engage” more than 150 targets at Eglin Air Force Base, a Department of Defense weapons testing facility on the Florida Panhandle. In other words, it disabled or destroyed them.

I figure we’re not more than 10-15 years away from ordering a civilian version from ThinkGeek, capable of knocking down your fellow officer worker’s Nerf bullets in flight. But what I really want is a slightly larger model capable of defending my property from pesky Google drones.