[jtchang]

I think the idea of focusing multiple low power radios onto a single point so that they coalesce is simply being rediscovered. While we could do this before the real ingenuity is being able to rapidly update all the parameters when the point you want to focus onto is rapidly changing.

Another scary idea: While we could beam wireless power imagine if this was in any way weaponized. With all these stations beaming power to everyone what would it take for an overwhelming number of them to direct it at a target with the purpose of eradicating it? Certainly not a laser in the traditional sense but surely something just as destructive.

[Tloewald]

The idea of deliberately burning out devices is interesting, and probably feasible, given a dense enough array of powerful enough transmitters (bear in mind that one of the key benefits of pCell is that it uses far lower-powered transmitters). But it seems to me the inverse square law is going to make it a very inefficient weapon.

[darkmighty]

Inverse square law does not apply to this as usual (although it does if you fix the beam configuration) -- but you can take your tin foil hats off (I guess this would indeed make a good scenario for tin foil hats) since you need real time channel estimation and feedback.

[Tloewald]

Are you sure the inverse square law does not apply? I think you're just getting a bigger coefficient. You might be constructively interfering signals, but the signals are still diminishing over distance. It's not magic, or they wouldn't need to place the antennas all over the place.

[musesum]

It doesn't have to be high power to be effective. Google search on "russian microwave US embassy" (not Bing search, unfortunately), which yields some interesting background on the Russian's beaming microwaves at the US Embassy. It was within the US legal limit at the time. Health problem ensued. Making an adversary sick without noticing may be more effective for some situations.

[bri3d]

http://www.ehjournal.net/content/11/1/85

The literature seems to indicate that the Russian microwave campaign resulted in no measurable health effect to the employees at the embassy. This is unsurprising because a wide variety of publications detailing similar microwave exposure from modern electronic equipment like cellular towers, phones, and WiFi access points seem to also indicate a negligible widespread health effect.

[politician]

If you can transmit power to a 1cm bubble in space, you may be able to offset it into, say, brain tissue. Brain tissue probably doesn't due too well under a focused heat source.

[ivanca]

That's were magnetos helmet comes in. In all seriousness what material (or device) could stop this from working?

[tga_d]

A simple Faraday cage, I would think. Hard part is making it look good.

[Jack000]

we're going to need that transparent aluminum

[aidenn0]

Actually I seem to recall that the eyes are much more sensitive to heat; the eyes have sensitive tissue and cannot shed heat as fast as the brain.

[marshray]

I really don't think the goal was to make anyone sick.

The Soviets were likely using microwave energy to activate passive listening devices hidden in the US embassy during its construction. ISTR the whole embassy had to be torn down and rebuilt.

Thanks to Snowden, today we know that the NSA refers to this technique as "flooding" and "radar" http://leaksource.info/2013/12/30/nsas-ant-division-catalog-...

The whole "make people sick" thing was likely a cover story to conceal the technique, even though both the US and the Soviets were clearly aware of it.

See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thing_(listening_device)