It's a well-known fact that we here at DVICE will write about more or less anything involving lasers, even if it doesn't involve lasers. Fortunately, this display system actually does involve lasers, and it also involves invisibility. Whoa.

In response to civil unrest in August that threw the U.K. into chaos, police forces there plan to trial a laser weapon that would cast a ten-foot wall of light that briefly blinds those caught in its path at a distance of 1,600 feet.

We've already seen laser systems that can target and shoot down mosquitoes, and we'll be honest: it's hard to beat an anti-bug battle laser. A new technique based on lasers and infrared light might be a slightly more realistic way of keeping mosquitoes at bay without having to zap each and every one.

For NASA, asking boffins to develop one laser-based tractor beam must not be difficult enough, because they've thrown down $100,000 for three entirely different flavors of the technology, which apparently does in fact exist.