| Nice find on the patent. > So, what this product needs in order to work is a fiber that's durable enough to survive being dragged across skin while having very little cladding so as to allow evanescent coupling. Facial hairs are alleged to be of similar toughness to copper wire when dry (see [0], too lazy to find a better reference). I have a difficult time conceiving how one could drag a multimode fiber across one's face without abrading the fiber to the point of failure. > Second, they need to pack a high power multi-wavelength laser source and the power reserve to run it into a very tiny handle. What is even trickier is incorporating a cooling mechanism for the theoretical self-contained, handheld, high-power, battery-powered white laser. > There's nothing here that looks outright impossible to me. Just very, very tricky. If it were not self-contained in a handheld unit, then yes, maybe it would be possible. I'm going to say that the their device, based on the proposed renderings, is impossible even if one were to throw Apple's war chest of money at it. There are also the problems of eye safety, skin exposure, heat, and fumes that remain to be overcome. [0] http://www.economist.com/node/2281888 |