Imagine this: a protest is getting slightly rowdy. The cops move in, a little over-enthusiastically. Fights ensue. People are shot. People are beaten. It's happened before. You got the whole thing on camera. Or did you? When you get home, your digital video is completely washed out, no picture at all. The evidence is gone, burned by a portable device the cops brought with them.

That's a scary future, and it's not too far away. Scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology have a protototype device that does just that.  It works by using a laser to scan for a digital camera CCD, then flashing a thin beam of light directly at the CCD, effectively rendering it useless. Admittedly, it will take a lot of development to reach the stage that such a device could track and continuously neutralize a hand-carried camera, but it could happen.

I can't wait for the first lawsuits over whether such a device tramples on our rights and freedoms.

I love this story, and not just because it's a Canadian company, or because it's a company no one has ever heard of before. This is great news for TV-buyers everywhere.