Lasers make everything better. Lasers can make random numbers that are perfect for encryption. Lasers can blow up an iPad. Lasers might eventually allow us to use nuclear fusion as a power source. That’s already impressive, but is it possible that they could actually make our wireless networks faster, and all around better? In certain very specific cases, yes.

We may be a long way off from developing something like the Death Star, but with the first firing of a 2 megajoule ultraviolet laser, we’re one step closer to feasible nuclear fusion. The record was set at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California where 192 lasers fired a combined 1.875-megajoule shot. After passing through a focusing lens, the laser managed 2.03 megajoules, blowing away the previous record.

So you’ve got a bunch of really, really powerful lasers sitting around and also some ridiculous flashlights and, oh, a new iPad, too. If you’re Lowell Niles you see the perfect recipe for destruction, which is exactly what happened when he subjected Apple’s newest tablet to a gauntlet of luminescent fury. Surprisingly, the lasers do little apparent damage to the device while the high intensity flashlights absolutely wreck it. Oh, and all those flames? Don’t worry; that’s just the iPad’s lithium-ion battery giving up the ghost. See the video, after the break.

Though Portal 2 released quite a while ago with a couple of its own new, catchy songs, the original Portal’s “Still Alive” by Jonathan Coulton is, ahem, still alive and kickin’. We’ve seen it played by a quartet of floppy drives, and while that was mightily impressive, this rendition by Chris DePrisco, played by a laser etching the Aperture logo into metal, is nothing short of incredible. Check out the video below.

Analog clocks are boring. For that matter, so are digital clocks. So what’s a person who likes to occasionally know what time it is to do? Build an unconventional clock out of some lasers and a salad bowl, that’s what. After all, lasers are just cool. It makes for a neat mix of analog and digital. Like digital, the hours and the minutes are completely separated. Like analog, you’ve got “hands” that slowly cover ground. Also, it has lasers. Did I mention that part?

A surefire way to make any given thing cooler is to use lasers. This definitely applies to rainbows. Sure you can make yourself a rainbow by aiming a beam of light through a prism, but how about taking 7 lasers of appropriate color and firing them off into the night sky? It definitely seems like an upgrade. Yvette Mattern is doing just that with her light installation Global Rainbow, now blasting across the UK, lighting up the North Tyneside coast for the first time last night. The purpose of it is to ”encompass geographical and social diversity in its reach and symbolise hope,” but presumably to just look awesome as well. Check out more pictures after the jump.

When it comes to mortal enemies, there are few more notorious than cats and laser pointers. However, felines aren’t the only members of the animal kingdom with a fascination for mobile red dots, as this puffer fish demonstrates.  However, I would ask that anyone hoping to try this at home use a laser that isn’t attached to a pistol, as the creator of this video did. That just seems like a bad idea.

High atop Hawaii’s Mauna Kea mountain is the W.M. Keck observatory. Like most telescopes trained towards the sky, most of us are familiar with what these institutions produce during the night — gorgeous pictures of stars, greater insight into the nature of the universe, etc. However, it takes a lot of daytime work to keep these incredibly complex and massive telescopes in working order. This video, shot by Andrew Cooper, highlights the men and women that keep telescopes running and make the science happen. Also, there are lasers.

High-end car maker BMW has recently announced that their i8 concept vehicle will feature laser headlights. Citing increased efficency, reduced size, and just because they can, BMW says that the laser is the next logical step after the LED for exterior automobile lighting.

BMW will use miniscule 10-micron long laser diodes, which is 100 times smaller than LED units, in the vehicle. Despite their tiny size, the laser diodes have far lower power requirements, able to shoot out 170 lumens per watt, versus a paltry 100 lumens per watt from LEDs. This could potentially increase the range of an electric vehicle, and improve overall efficiency for the conventional vehicles. For those in the audience who are exterior lighting designers in the automotive industry (hi, dad!), the lasers also provide a “coherent” light source and ”a constant phase difference,” which I assume to be a good thing.

Of course, where lasers go, safety concerns will follow.

Hoping to make the next jump in space communications technology, NASA has planned for a three-year test of a laser communications system on a future satellite mission. The test will will involve the construction of two Earth-based laser stations, and could pave the way for far greater communication capability through space than we have now.

The goal of the test is to prove that the technology for such a communication system exists, and also to develop the best methodologies for using it. For instance, because Earthly atmospheric conditions can interrupt laser communications, NASA will test how well they can move data reception from one tracking station to another and store data onboard the spacecraft until the skies clear. The end result of the test could lead to high-definition imagery from a Mars rover in near real-time or, thanks to the laser’s small size, more capable microsatellites.