Defense contractor Northrop Grumman slapped a huge laser on the front of a modified 747, then used it to shoot down a ballistic missle, while they were both in the air.

Think about it: that’s like a bullet shooting a laser to shoot down another bullet. It’s incredible. Here’s a quote from last Friday’s press release:

“While ballistic missiles like the one [the Airborne Laser Testbed] destroyed move at speeds of about 4,000 miles per hour, they are no match for a super-heated, high-energy laser beam racing towards it at 670 million mph,”

Wow. You gotta love it when people seriously use phrases like “they’re no match for a super-heated, high-energy laser beam.” What the hell could possibly be a match for that?

The test went like this – a missile was fired from an “at sea” platform into the air. The 747 then detected that missile and fired three different beams at it – one to track it, one to monitor the atmosphere between the 747 and the missile, and one to blow that missile straight to hell.

Boeing calls that third laser, “the most powerful mobile laser device in the world” – when the laser connects, it heats up pressurized sections of the weapon targeted, rupturing those sections to take out the missile. All in all, it took two minutes to bring down the missile.

Damn!

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You’d think Amazon would want that extra cash, too – an increased sale price means more profit for the globe’s biggest book retailer, right? Well, not if they’re trying to move Kindles, they don’t. Amazon’s looking for a e-book pricing model that’s simple and cheap – take a loss on each e-book to more more of their e-book readers – but publishers are balking, moving from wholesale pricing models to what they call “agency” pricing models in order to restore the higher prices.

HarperCollins, Hachette and a just added Macmillan are the biggest of the defecting publishers, and are unilaterally setting their price points at $14.99 to $15.99 per e-book (with new releases  going possibly as low as $12.99). Amazon, who needs their books, has no choice but to go along with it all.

This is good news for Steve Jobs, who seeking to avoid his iPad being outmaneuvered by the Kindle – both are e-book readers, and the one with the cheapest e-books could conquer the emerging e-publishing market. If he can keep parity with the Kindle’s prices (or undersell them), it’ll be just another reason to pick up an iPad.

Personally, I’ll be sticking with r-books – real books that actually exist in physical space – for the time being.

Source: VentureBeat

Image Source: Amazon.com

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