CNN) -- It cuts through plastic! It burns holes in
walls!
It ... tells time?
Like something out of a James Bond film, it's a watch
-- equipped with a laser. Its inventor, Patrick Priebe,
built it during downtime from his full-time gig
creating props and modestly describes it as a "tiny
watch made of garbage."
Still, Priebe's laser watch has attracted its share of
attention for being an entertaining, if mildly
dangerous, bit of technology. (It will burn skin if the
wearer isn't careful.)
On a YouTube video, the German tinkerer activates
the laser and pops a handful of balloons, lights a few
matches and burns through a compact-disc case.
The video has picked up more than 700,000 views
since Priebe posted it five days ago -- not bad, though
not as much as his Spider-Man "Webshooter" (2.1
million views) or his laser cannon prototype (1.3
million).
Priebe, who runs a firm called Laser Gadgets, said he
made the watch out of "leftovers."
"I found a piece of leftover tubing, and I put it on my
wrist and I realized it looked like a watch already," he
said from his home near Cologne. After molding the
tubing a bit more, "all I had to do was file down the
edges to make the time module fit and cut
something out for the laser module on the side, and
it fit right away. It's just my style, putting things
together without a plan."
The laser watch has been compared to a James Bond
device, but Priebe says it wasn't inspired by a
particular Bond film -- not even "Goldfinger," with its
famous scene of the villain aiming a laser at Bond's
crotch. Instead, it was a Nintendo game of
"GoldenEye," the video game based on the 1995
Pierce Brosnan Bond movie.
"I'm not really a Bond fan," Priebe said, admitting
that he prefers science fiction.
Priebe, a former lab technician, is a now a full-time
prop builder who's constructed pieces for the TV
show "Warehouse 13," among other projects. He also
makes money from YouTube views and been caught
off-guard by the interest in the laser watch. He likes
to personally answer YouTube comments and e-mail
queries, and has gotten backed up with both.
Incidentally, if you're interested in buying the watch
-- you budding Dr. Evil, you -- too bad. It's not for
sale, Priebe says.
"There are some limits," he said. "I always say I don't
make weapons. I just make toys."
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/11/25/tech/innovation/laser-watch-priebe/index.html

interesting