“Star Wars” creator George Lucas wants to force a laser company to stop making a new, high-powered product he says looks too much like the famous lightsaber from his classic sci-fi series.
Lucasfilm Ltd. has sent a cease-and-desist letter to Hong Kong-based Wicked Lasers, threatening legal action if it doesn’t change its Pro Arctic Laser series or stop selling it altogether.
“It is apparent from the design of the Pro Arctic Laser that it was intended to resemble the hilts of our lightsaber swords, which are protected by copyright … ,” said the letter, dated last month and provided to CNN by Wicked Lasers.
The letter calls the company’s newest laser “a highly dangerous product with the potential to cause blindness, burns and other damage to people and/or property.”
Steve Liu, CEO of Wicked Lasers, said his 7-year-old company has been selling similar lasers for years and has never compared the product to the Jedi weapon wielded by Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader and others in the “Star Wars” franchise.
“Most people feel it’s kind of ridiculous …,” he said. “We would never use any comparison like that to ‘Star Wars’ or a lightsaber or anything like that.”
He called the $199 gadget’s design fairly typical for a handheld laser and said it isn’t a copy of the lightsaber.
While the device has some lightsaber shape and design characteristics, lightsabers came in so many designs. According to Star Wars lore, each jedi created their own lightsaber. Also, the lightsabers used in the movies looked much like current pieces of science fiction and characteristics taken from sword hilts. I’m no lawyer but I will be curious to see how this turns out. That said, I want one! Anyone feel free to send me one to test, play with, show off to other geek friends. : )
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Cybercriminals were out in full force over the Independence Day weekend, launching attacks on some of the world’s most popular online destinations: YouTube and iTunes.
Romanian iPhone developer Alexandru Brie was among the first to wonder how Thuat Nguyen’s Vietnamese-language comic books had come to occupy 41 of the top 50 spots in the App Store’s paid books category (in the process, booting Brie’s own app from its usual top-20 perch). In a blog post, Brie put together such evidence as Nguyen’s poor showing in the store’s Vietnamese categories and multiple reviews of his titles alleging fraud to suggest one explanation:
Here’s something that the struggling hotel sector prefers not to spotlight: it is a favorite target of hackers.
Do you receive any of these messages when you try to delete a file or folder?