inkican
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Aug 12, 2026 2:31 PM
inkican
24957
777
21
morninggloryshade777
Hey N MNs: you reading this????
EstellaOsoka
Didn't they learn their lesson with the whole swallow debacle?
reformedxile
While I hate the little buggers, they are an important food for other creatures. I mean, it's isn't like there are a lot less of other bugs and the world itself has been getting worse since we started spraying and killing bugs off in mass, right?
HalleySHDW
Amazed by the comments showing the absolute uneducated ones. No wonder the world.goes.to sh*t
ThailandExpress
this will starve certain birds & bats if to many are killed
niekitty
I think I need a couple of those at work. The mosquitos are so big it feels like there's a swarm of nurses with needles attacking every time I open a door to cycle the badge reader.
nosuprise
I saw something like this at a makers faire in San Mateo like ten years ago.hing
TheOriginalAmberRose
For god's sake, quit wasting technology on stuff that doesn't need it. Mosquito dunks are ten bucks on Amazon. I haven't had a mosquito all summer.
Cataleast
"Hey, guys. I think it's time for round two. Everything went so well the last time, right?"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_campaign
Lisossoma
Have you ever heard about Mao’s fight against sparrows?
drousnavat
I want one. I will wear sunglasses the entire time I am camping if I have too.
BernardSchuijt
Greatest part of the job is already done by the human race due to environmental pollution. Almost no musquito's left to kill.
apLundell
I'm old enough to remember when the Gates Foundation was building these. They said it would eliminate malaria for good. I haven't heard any followups, so I assume malaria is extinct now.
TeamToasterNeverForget
Bill Gates funded a contraption like this maybe 20 years ago and it worked just fine. The reason it didn’t catch on was that it was meant for African communities where mosquito-borne diseases and they are very expensive so they were not even close to the most effective method of mitigating spread og disease
ByThePowerOfSCIENCE
it was never proven beyond controlled conditions (mosquitos traveling in a tunnel)
and the investor was Nathan Myhrvold (an acquaintance of Gates)
CorgisButtsDriveMeNuts
Yeah mosquitos aren't ultimately bad. A lot of birds, frogs and what not eat them. They also pollinate a lot of plants.
NotInLimboAnymore
Didn't the Chinese fuck up their ecosystem once before?
Cataleast
Yup! My brain immediately went to the "Four Pests Campaign".
Lomish
and consumes how much energy?
Cornflakes91
couple watts. a big ceiling lamp would need more
Scythrael
SMMDS. Surface-to-Mosquito Missile Defense System.
presentingmedia
Ai powered laser sounds like a terrible idea when it hallucinates. Honestly I think most things that say AI powered are straight lying
LoftyGoat
Did they now? The thing described above was the subject of a DIY project article in IEEE Spectrum ten or twelve years ago.
SpicyGoober
The woods be looking like this now
SecondSince
I haven't seen this gif in a LONG time!
Starlatan
https://media3.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPWE1NzM3M2U1eGozcDdpazc2YTZvOHhlM2FneHd1d2xhemkyNjZjdjBsdW9idGVnZyZlcD12MV9naWZzX3NlYXJjaCZjdD1n/LOcPt9gfuNOSI/200w.webp
haggerton
Actually close enough lol
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AL8u-QK7ZgI
MrNobodyWTB
Shut up and take my money.
SpicyGoober
Holy shit that really is close enough hahaha
datphone777365
Wouldn't masers be better? Tune them to be just strong enough to damage mosquito wings to cripple them? Nearby bug eaters will take care of them.
ByThePowerOfSCIENCE
wave diffraction puts a lower limit on your spot diameter
and masers are huge compared to a diode laser
but yes, lasers here are dialed to just damage the wings
datphone777365
Could they not use a wider but stronger beam thats tuned to just cripple the wings while remaining "harmless" to larger animals?
ByThePowerOfSCIENCE
that looks like a wide beam engulfing the mosquito, at least 3 mm
here: https://spectrum.ieee.org/laser-bug-zapper-inches-to-market-
defaultname2000
Mosquito, or any insect, anything resembling the size of a mosquito plus some factor of 10?
TheobromineAddict
If you kill ALL the bugs in that size range… environmental disaster.
defaultname2000
aye
PrometheusSmith
Anything that has that distinctive, frequency specific drone of a mosquito that comes from the frequency of their wingbeats. It's basically just mosquitos.
ByThePowerOfSCIENCE
the role of AI is identifying wing beat frequencies and probably motion patterns
defaultname2000
so it might or mightn't work, more or less, but it's nobody's fault?
vladrichdemaclant
Yeah. That's possibly bad for those animals that normally would eat them. And for your eyes.
Bystandr
Hopefully the bycatch isnt to the point where they wipe out all kinds of flies. Some of those are needed for the ecosystem to function.
PrometheusSmith
It's very easy to find a mosquito from a long distance when using lasers to scan like these do. You know that distinctive, high pitch hum that tells you a mosquito is near? That's the frequency of their wing beats. These detectors use reflected laser light to spot insects and match the pulsations of the wing beats to the insect, then eliminate the matches to that frequency range.
Bystandr
Oh, good !
oldguyexlurker
These days on my back patios, I'd risk it. Make everyone in the house wear welding helmets. LOL The fly population is out of control this summer here. Like, CARPETING the area outside my arcadia door. They appear to be congregating close to any place some cooler air escapes, or deeper shade. I've set out traps and they're catching what looks like hundreds, but I need thousands. We have plenty of lizards and they are lookin' pretty fat, but it's not enough.
DeepSpaceNetwork
Mosquitos are needed as well, they are a big food source. Sadly they the US as their food source...
Bystandr
Back when we did things like gas entire states and countries with DDT, yeah we saw impacts to other insect, bird and fish populations from a lack of mosquito numbers for food. This isnt wiping them out of a region like mass DDT application did. Its more of a limited area denial system. Mosquitos have PLENTY of area to breed if this is only setup around human habitation. Im fine with denying them the area around my house as it includes me lol.
purr
A laser powerful enough to instakill an insect is also powerful enough to instakill your eyes. You won't find me anywhere near these things.
throwaway12345432
Probably because once we each walk within proximity, we'd be blinded.
MechKelly
Mirrored glasses?
haggerton
There are safety glasses for laser, but it's kinda inconvenient to wear those in your house.
Flareside
Let's set them up near police lot exits. Then they might stopping seeing skin color
rolliefingers
I guess it's back to the training wheels protocol for us.
WenzelDashington
Can I just wear sunglasses while it’s doing its laser hunting and then when I had my fill of mosquito minders I can just turn it off and take off my cool ass sunglasses?
WenzelDashington
Mosquito murders*
haggerton
Some claims that lasers of this power aren't powerful enough to harm human/pets: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2026/05/mosquito-lasers-china/687330/
But yeah they are awaiting safety certifications, and I think it prudent to wait before trying one.
They can be pre-ordered here: https://store.photonmatrixlab.com/products/photon-matrix-infrared-laser-mosquito-air-defense
haggerton
To add to the claim that it's not powerful enough to harm human/pets: it doesn't actually instakill the mosquito. The laser is aimed at the wings, which are much more fragile. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AL8u-QK7ZgI
purr
ah, interesting. yeah I could see it being safe(r) then.
getthismanabeer
So now it's to insta-blind FPV drones.
quietwalker
This was a thing like, nearly 20 years ago. Bill Gates was financing it.
Evenmoreuselessname
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquito_laser yup
ByThePowerOfSCIENCE
it was backed / owned not by Gates but by Nathan Myhrvold - it was shelved quietly, probably because of technical difficulty
PersonalityFire
Big Mosquito had their say, it would seem.
wabitgirl
Iirc it was shelved due to issues with end user safety vs affordability. Basically, any system sufficiently advanced to hit an appropriate rate of not accidentally shooting humans was prohibitively expensive to the end consumer, which at the time was largely heavily impoverished communities in subsaharan Africa, i.e. not a wealthy client base.
Frenchgeek
Yes, but now, they call it A.I. powered.
TacoPoweredHelicopter
Ok but to be fair they can use "a.i." to learn what is a human and what is a mosquito... So as to not shoot eyes.
It's a good use for "a.i" like an actual practical use with value.
AzgarOgly
MIT students presented the thing doing exactly that built out of simple off shelf components like 10 years ago.
4Astaroth
And I recently saw a good report on why no one should kill all of them for some animals and plants need these things to survive.
AzgarOgly
Lots of people die from mosquito born diseases.
I think if the amount of mosquitos gets reduced in populated areas the ecological shift will be acceptable.
pullingsixty
Pretty light comment for the downvotes you're getting. You are correct of course but I doubt this device would get wide spread sales. It'll be expensive and likely bought mostly by the outdoor party crowd. I could see it being useful in areas with malaria or West Nile virus amongst others. The estimation is that there are between 110 trillion and 1 quadrillion (1,000 trillion) mosquitoes alive on Earth at any given time so we could probably kill a few of them.
4Astaroth
Thank you. I agree that these would be only bought by camping and party guys. And it would be a great way to get rid of the viruses that kill over a million people per year. The amount of them is quite fascinating for such a small and fragile insect.
diepgat
We've been inventing this thing for close to 30 years now. It was perfected quite some time ago.
one tiny problem, they must be installed so that they can never shoot into an eye. So on a tall pole, not in urban area's, care must be taken for possible reflections, etc etc etc.
Every singe time that is what stops the project.
Atomic2
Maybe the "AI powered" bit of it is a system of recognizing safe and unsafe conditions to fire. Not something I'd personally trust, mind you, but this is China we're talking about.
wabitgirl
Something tricky about a system that uses a laser to collect info on its target that needs to be able to not shoot lasers into people's eyes... i.e. know that something is an eye BEFORE it shoots its info collecting laser in the first place. It does seem like AI would be a huge aid in this, as human movement and shape patterns are slightly different than mosquito movement and shape patterns, but it would still need to eschew using a laser for primary information collection.
dirtcreature
Yeah, and I would have to stop wearing my mosquito print contact lenses
futhor
"Alas, my project to fill the neighborhood with lasers has backfired"
MadamPuddifoot
Sorry, but... Don't make words plural with 's.
Dasnekones
Guess it finally found the land of unlimited oppertunities... and no regulations.
Theshnazzyone
how does it know the difference between mosquitos and moths (who I don't want to hurt)
Andersen81
So installing it under a disco ball is no go? Damn libs a taking all the fun out of living.
Evenmoreuselessname
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquito_laser
FoxySpirit
I guess that's where the AI part comes in. Learn the neutral background to ensure the coast is clear. We use something like that in video analysis at work.
TheDildoOfConsequences
Serious question: what kind of reliability levels do you think you could achieve to detect whether or not this thing was pointing at a human? It's fair to say I'm not expecting the >99.999999% that we'd need for an open-air anti-mosquito system, but I'm curious to know how many nines is realistically achievable at the moment.
Akurei00
Just one? 9% confidence
Sh1tMovieGroup
Remember seeing something two decades ago that used parts of a cd player to keep costs down and used infrared cameras to identify pregnant females as only they bite (to reduce firing unnecessarily) - was intended for Africa, hence the price focus.
Evenmoreuselessname
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquito_laser
SpottedDickSandwich
The Gates foundation funded research into such a device from 2007 onwards.
Sh1tMovieGroup
Probably that then, I've slept since..
Felberin
Well, good news for the tech is; in China that doesn't really matter. If you are too poor to get your eyes fixed, then that's your problem :O
purr
There's no fixing "burning out your retinas with a laser". Also if it's garbage quality chinese lasers, safety goggles may not even help because they emit light on multiple wavelengths.
TheDildoOfConsequences
Please tell me you're not in America writing that...
ByThePowerOfSCIENCE
That's why the original concept was a "curtain" inside a window frame, with dispersive tape as a backdrop. Then it only fires when the reflection matches the spectral signature or at least the frequency of a mosquito's wing beat but not other bugs.
swedeonamoose
And if you have it out in the woods, half the damn deer population will be blind soon enough
gluttonygreedpridewrathslothlustenvy
https://media4.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPWE1NzM3M2U1eGplc2FiZ3Q0ODlxZHl2NHRtYjMzYW10Y3hubW5pZXZxeGg4MmxicCZlcD12MV9naWZzX3NlYXJjaCZjdD1n/110OKtOq68apji/200w.webp
HandoB4Javert
No eye deer
ExistentialDreadlocks
sharK11
What do you call a deer without any legs or eyes?
alantosai
a little gamey but soooo tender?
FartingWiener
You call it a deer, you ableist!
HandoB4Javert
Russell
Mindyourowndamnbusiness
A "still no eye deer."
sharK11
https://media0.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPWE1NzM3M2U1bGFvam1xeG9oOGtteDUyY3k4YjB3aWZrMXlraXI5enk1M3JiZmI0biZlcD12MV9naWZzX3NlYXJjaCZjdD1n/ummeQH0c3jdm2o3Olp/200w.webp
rolliefingers
That's what deer blinds are for.
Ilovehavingfreehealthcare
https://media1.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPWE1NzM3M2U1enVnNzFla2pucDR1Nmk1Mmk5dmlycHRpemt3MGo4bXdlcDF3dm9odSZlcD12MV9naWZzX3NlYXJjaCZjdD1n/l1J9AR2Kc2WqSV1FS/200w.webp
NarcoleptcSmurf
Deer blinds are for deer privacy.
mikeatike
Deer blinds are what they must be becsuse they keep jumping out in front of my car.