When the gap between haves and have-nots becomes so glaringly obvious that even water cannons, tear gas and baton charges aren't enough to hold back the tide of change - just how are the poor disenfranchised global elite going to hold the line?

Well Raytheon have potentially plugged the gap by filing a patent for a Man-Portable Non-Lethal Pressure Shield. Charmingly the device is intended to suppress the huddled masses by emitting sound waves capable of causing temporary paralysis.

Looking re-assuringly like a traditional bobby-on-the-beat riot shield, it would in fact have integrated into it a ‘sonic pulse generator'. Fired at a low frequency, the sound waves could either be released as a single burst or as a stream.

As a result, those on the receiving end of the sonic weapon would have their upper respiratory tracts activated to the extent that breathing becomes difficult. The effect would be more powerful in instances where these shields are deployed en masse, producing a more focused and further-reaching wave form as a result of, essentially, being networked up together.

Obviously realising that a global recession is going to make crowd suppression technology a very big dollar indeed every garden shed tinkerer is trying to get in on the act with their Heath Robinson anti-insurgency-o-matic devices. Check out Photonic Security Systems as they gleefully blind troublemakers with a three metre high wall of laser light.

For more on the sinister world of security - www.security-technologynews.com