Laser Weapon System, or LaWS tested sucessfully. For years, the U.S.
Navy has been pursuing a workable ray gun that could provide a leap ahead in ship self-defenses. Now, with a series of tests of a system called the Laser Weapon System, or LaWS), it may be one step closer to that goal. Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA), the service's technology development arm, announced today that LaWS had "successfully tracked, engaged, and destroyed" a drone in flight, during an over-the-water engagement at San Nicholas Island, California.
It's certainly not the first time lasers have shot down an unmanned aerial vehicle -- last year, the Air Force zapped several drones with beam weapons in a series of tests at China Lake, California, -- but this test brings an additional bit of realism -- and an extra technical challenge. Stuxnet. Updated: Aug. 9, 2012 Over the last few years, Iran has become the target of a series of notable cyberattacks, some of which were linked to its nuclear program .
The best known of these was Stuxnet, the name given to a computer worm, or malicious computer program. Mr. Obama decided to accelerate the attacks — begun in the Bush administration and code-named Olympic Games — even after an element of the program accidentally became public in the summer of 2010 because of a programming error that allowed it to escape Iran’s Natanz plant and sent it around the world on the Internet. Computer security experts who began studying the worm, which had been developed by the United States and Israel, gave it a name: Stuxnet. Raytheon. Last updated: 10/27/2011* Raytheon’s second-generation exoskeleton (XOS 2), essentially a wearable robotics suit, has been named one of the Best Inventions of 2010 by Time Magazine .
The suit was unveiled for the first time in September during an event at the company’s Salt Lake City research facility.