This may be at popsci.com but some of my friends and I were just talking about this yesterday. It has very real applications and implications, and I would expect to see lasers widely used as weapons in the next 25 years. We're trying to build a dye laser from the gorund up. It won't be quite as powerful as the laser in this plane, but it also won't weigh 40,000lbs.
The chem lasers are so huge right now that airborne applications are a little dumb. I would expect to see them as a HUGE component of IADS.
No lightsabers or rayguns for a while yet, though.
