Pain Ray

Here's something you may have heard of, but now Raytheon has been awarded a contract to make one for field use. I would say it's easily preferable to a gun, because it causes no physical damage. It's a ray (a specific frequency of radio wave) that penetrates only the barest outer layer of your skin, but causes intolerable pain. You can think of it as a microwave gun that doesn't actually burn you, it just feels like it's burning you.

Massive potential for abuse, of course. It would be a shame (and a crime) if it was used to disperse peaceful protests, but it's probably a safe alternative to rubber bullets for when protests turn violent. It will be interesting to see how this changes things both on the battlefield and off. There's always the Spy vs. Spy issue as well; there is very likely a material that you can wear that would render this particular technology useless.

via BB