The hottest gadget yet: A flashlight that sets fires

From the “Talking Tech” blog over at the St Louis (MO) Post-Dispatch, an article from Dave Sheets concerning a new gadget...

Just what Talking Tech has always wanted: a flashlight that could burn down our house.

The Torch (link http://www.wickedlasers.com/lasers/wicked_lights-74-0.htm) is a flashlight that looks like a typical flashlight, but this $299 wonder is billed as the world's brightest and most powerful of its kind -- so powerful, in fact, that it can melt plastic, burn a pile of paper, even fry an egg.

We're not sure how many Energizer bunnies it takes for that to happen.

There are more disadvantages than advantages to having one of these things, however. Thanks to all that power, the aerospace-grade aluminum casing warms up around the lens rather fast, so don't set it down right away on one of your mother's good linen tablecloths.

Another down side -- a really big one, in fact -- is that the battery lasts only 15 minutes at full power.

But practicality isn't The Torch's main selling point. The company that developed it, Wicked Lasers (now there's a clue) reportedly has submitted it for review by the Guinness Book of World Records.

Maybe next year, Wicked Lasers will come out with a working lightsaber.