Scientists develop "tractor beam"

That is so amazing.

Now we're one more step to the Galaga becoming a reality!

Tractor beam tech and transporter tech are two different things people. Moving heavy objects from one place to another using lasers would be amazing. Reducing a human to their components and rematerializing them over vast distances would be even more amazing!!

I just read about a website that transports you to a random location on the planet via Google Street View. I have fun envisioning something like this if/when human teleportation becomes a reality. http://boingboing.net/2010/09/07/globe-genie-random-t.html

I can't wait for the large scale version

I wonder if something like this would be effective at getting my tired keister from the bed to the shower on Monday mornings... Seriously though, very cool research. Thanks for posting it up Still Waters.

I know practicaly nothing about this techknowledgey but what if you used lasers just like you do in a blue ray player with four or five lasers aimed at diffrent piont along the tube in diffrent angles and have two lasers in the same direction with a small space causing a tube within a tubeone going clock wise and on anti clock wise I recken you'd get a stable tube with compartments to hold individule objects or at least a targeted system of movement.by moving the range of the lasers around the tube drawing the material forward ?!

This is amazing news. Yet another win for Still Waters! I hope this technology can be GREATLY amplified. Imagine if we could "tractor" mineral/metal asteroids into close orbit around Earth? Or asteroids with incredibly rare compounds? We need to shift our mining off planet anyway, and this would be the best way to do it. We'd build an industrial asteroid belt around our planet, and basically have workers live up there for long periods of time, coming back for breaks (like current Alberta Oil Sands workers, or other month-on-two-weeks-off workers). They'd hollow the asteroids out, collecting al... [More]