The Register

Biting the hand that feeds IT — Enterprise Technology News and Analysis

$1K laser mosquito zapper promises precision strikes as backers itch for answers

Do you love lasers and hate mosquitoes? For $1,000, you can install your very own bug-zapping surface-to-air missile rig at home – no military-grade budget required, provided the startup behind it delivers on its promises. The Chinese company behind Photon Matrix has opened pre-orders for its consumer-grade mosquito zappers after videos of early prototypes began circulating in July 2025. The devices resemble home theater projectors in both size and appearance, and can be deployed wherever their owner has an acute mosquito problem. They use LiDAR to locate the pests, a galvo system to track their movement, and a laser to zap the bug in mid-air, according to the vendor. Photon Matrix Lab, based in Changzhou, China, markets the device as a chemical-free alternative to mosquito repellents and insecticides. The company said the device is intended for use inside the home, including bedrooms and nurseries. Official images show it sitting on a nightstand or mounted on the wall above a bed. According to the marketing materials, mosquito haters can choose between a visible blue laser and an invisible infrared beam to take out the bloodsuckers, and the devices have an effective range of six meters. In addition to mosquitoes, the device is supposedly capable of taking out other winged irritants measuring between 2 mm and 20 mm, provided they fly no faster than 1 meter per second. You can watch it in action below. Photon Matrix can now be pre-ordered in the US, UK excluding Northern Ireland, EU, Australia, and China, with the website promising shipment within 120 days. It has taken the company more than a year to get to this stage. It first documented a working prototype in June 2025 and, after a lengthy period of R&D and more than $2.8 million raised via Indiegogo, the devices have entered mass production, according to the vendor. However, this lengthy period of development has led to unease among backers, as has the lack of assurances that the device can meet safety standards in the markets the company intends to enter. Photon Matrix Lab's most recent update on laser safety compliance (and its third most recent update overall) came in June 2026, when it said certification applications remained in progress. "All mandatory safety and quality certifications for the laser mosquito killer are currently in progress steadily, strictly complying with international laser safety standards and electronic product specifications to ensure global market accessibility and user safety," it said in the update. Several of the backers on the comments thread below the post said they were concerned about compliance, citing the terms of service, which state that customers are responsible for ensuring it is legal to import the product into their own country. The project's creator, calling himself Jim Wong, responded directly in the thread with what AI text checkers determined to be an LLM-aided or generated message acknowledging the issue, but provided no assurances that Photon Matrix Lab would address it. "Thank you for the thoughtful message – and I hear your point. You're right that backers need clear certification information to make an informed decision, and we take that responsibility seriously." Wong went on to say that refunds were available until an order shipped, but made no commitment to verify the product's legality in each destination market, which to be fair, is not unusual, as many border agents will attest. In the past week, Indiegogo backers have also expressed concern that the company has not addressed whether the lasers could interfere with aircraft. Other backers claim repeated refund requests have gone unanswered, while several have questioned whether the product is legitimate. The Register contacted the company for more information. ®

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Gooi snelwegblokkades boeren en XR-blokkades niet op één hoop

Einde seizoen Jonas Vingegaard na val in de Tour de France

Jesse Klaver van Pro na afloop begrotingsgesprek: ‘Verschillen levensgroot’. Gesprekken met JA21 ‘constructief’

Het minderheidskabinet voert gesprekken met oppositiepartijen over de begroting van volgend jaar. Jesse Klaver, leider van oppositiepartij Pro, zei maandagavond na afloop dat de verschillen „levensgroot” zijn.

The Guardian

Latest news, sport, business, comment, analysis and reviews from the Guardian, the world's leading liberal voice

A job that changed me: After years of being a marriage celebrant, I became uneasy with the institution

My favourite part was sitting with couples, talking about their lives and why they wanted to marry. But I’m equally happy to have left it behind

I was in my mid-20s in the mid-2000s when I became a professional yapper. I’d had to bow out of a career in Auslan interpreting due to injury, but could still talk under wet concrete. Studying to become a civil marriage celebrant felt logical – I wanted to know what love was, and I knew it could show me.

Being appointed by the Attorney-General’s Department involved a Certificate III and rigorous application process. I had to prove I was “of good standing” and “believed in the definition of marriage”. As a card-carrying homosexual, I wrote about my belief in all kinds of love, including marriage. It couldn’t take that long, I thought, for us to be recognised as having committed partnerships. Waiting a long, loathsome decade proved me wrong.

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British Muslim student with valid visa refused entry to US after 23-hour detention

Laith Alani, who had booked week-long trip to visit theme parks and family, believes US border force profiled him on arrival in Orlando

A British student who was detained and deported after flying to the US claims he was profiled for being Muslim.

Laith Alani said he felt as if he had been kidnapped when he was interrogated for nine hours and detained in a holding cell for another 14 hours by US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) at Orlando international airport.

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Enzo Maresca’s Manchester City opener was startlingly bad

The Community Shield isn’t always a sign of things to come, but City’s form in their defeat to Arsenal is concerning in the wake of Pep Guardiola’s departure

There are caveats. It was only the Community Shield – and no side has gone on to win the league after lifting the Community Shield since 2018. It was against the league champions, whose preseason has involved far less strenuous travel than their own. By the time the season really gets going, there will be greater clarity in central midfield, with Rodri set to complete his move to Barcelona imminently. But this was a startlingly bad opening for Enzo Maresca at Manchester City.

Succeeding a manager of Pep Guardiola’s stature is never easy, as numerous clubs have found. But it’s not just Guardiola’s stature, the sense that whoever follows him stands in his shadow. It’s that his style of play is so idiosyncratic that the transition process inevitably becomes more difficult. Even though Maresca was Guardiola’s assistant at City in 2022-23, and his football is Guardiola-inspired, it is not identical, not least because Guardiola was always evolving. Even allowing for all that, though, it was remarkable how poorly City defended in their 3-0 defeat to Arsenal on Sunday.

This is an extract from Soccer Desk, a newsletter from the Guardian US. Subscribe for free here.

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Top album releases linked to rise in fatal crashes as ‘distracted’ drivers access music

Harvard study finds traffic fatalities increase by 15% on release dates compared with similar days either side

The release of a new album by Taylor Swift might be a cause for celebration among her fans, but such events have also been linked to a more sombre phenomenon: an increase in fatal car crashes.

The team behind a new study say it sheds light on the impact of distracted driving. “You can’t randomise people into using their phones, and drivers rarely volunteer what they were doing in the seconds before a crash,” said Dr Vishal Patel, first author of the study based at Harvard Medical School.

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The Sinking City 2 review – Ukrainian cosmic horror, come hell or high water

PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S/X, PC; Frogwares
Frogwares’ Lovecraftian action-horror is full of grim tenacity and pulp paperback charm, despite a few frayed edges

I’m standing in the prosthetics lab of a campy horror hospital, hunting for a preacher’s flayed face to wear so I can trick the world’s grisliest smart doorbell. Pinned to a board in the corner of the room are a dozen X-rays: shattered bones and metal splints in sepia negative, each with a note attached. It’s a stark, clinical intrusion on the theatrical gore elsewhere. It takes a beat to realise that I’m reading the stories of injuries sustained by soldiers fighting for Frogwares’ native Ukraine. Fingers amputated after severe burns. Limbs lost in mine explosions. Toes torn off by shell fire.

Like so many of my favourite PS3-era seven-out-of-tens, The Sinking City 2 is a pulpy action horror. It’s fuelled by scrappy ambition, Lovecraft fan fiction and wonderfully unhinged scenario design. A puzzle that has you determine which talking jarred brain is telling porkies. A scavenger hunt to fix a crane to move a rotting whale carcass. A gunfight amid the grisly results of a siren pop star’s fan meet-up turned battle royale.

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Westnijlvirus is terug en STOP met krabben

muggenbulten op een been

Voor het eerst sinds 2020 is het westnijlvirus weer in Nederland. Het virus gaat van vogel via mug naar mens. "Bij 1 procent van de besmettingen treden neurologische klachten op." Volgens het RIVM zijn er in korte tijd een mens, een paard en een vogel positief getest. "Dat laat zien dat er muggen in Nederland zijn die het virus bij zich dragen." En die teringmuggen prikken zich de laatste weken helemaal scheel. Mag je dan..

KRABBEN? Neeee, niet krabben

KRABBEN? Neeeeee, niet krabben

KRABBEN? Neeeeee, niet krabben

KRABBEN? Neeeeee, niet krabben

KRABBEN? Neeeeee, niet krabben

KRABBEN? Neeeeee, niet krabben

KRABBEN? Neeeeee, niet krabben

KRABBEN? Neeeeee, niet krabben

KRABBEN? Neeeeee, niet krabben

KRABBEN? Neeeeee, niet krabben

KRABBEN? Neeeeee, niet krabben

KRABBEN? Neeeeee, niet krabben

Okee duidelijk, bedankt media, niet krabben dus