Bringing in designers equipped with tools like laser cutters, he transformed his booth into a miniature industrial design center and cranked out a series of prototypes for actual products.

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It will be standing room only on the Capitol grounds -- the Secret Service says no lawn chairs, nor umbrellas or signs will be allowed -- and the lengthy list of banned items includes aerosol spray, air horns, coolers, glass, hand tools, laser pointers, pepper spray, strollers, and thermoses.

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One of their tools is a laser that can activate a neuron in the animal's brain.

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TechShop's overseers have, quite cannily, begun to offer up a portion of the warehouse's 17, 000 square feet as office space, giving its members a shot at some prime San Francisco real estate, a flight of stairs up from an impressive array of machine tools -- laser cutters, water jets and more 3D printers than most mortals have seen in one place.

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Some of the tools, such as a laser-firing instrument for checking rocks' elemental composition from a distance, are the first of their kind on Mars.

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He had the entire traditional political press corps and mainstream media focused on him like a laser beam by utilizing one of the most old school tools available to a senator -- the filibuster.

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