The Firearm Blog has the lead one a new piece of fancy technology brought to us by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a self-adjusting rifle scope:
Military and police marksmen could see their rifle sights catch up with the 21st century with a fiber-optic laser-based sensor system that automatically corrects for even tiny barrel disruptions.
The system, developed by a team led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Slobodan Rajic, precisely measures the deflection of the barrel relative to the sight and then electronically makes the necessary corrections. The lifesaving results are lethal.
The only current downside is the technology only appears to work with fluted barrels:
The typical barrel of a high-power rifle has exterior grooves, called flutes, to reduce weight and create more surface area to enable the barrel to cool faster. The barrel heats up as a result of the hot expanding gases in the barrel and the friction from the bullets that are propelled by these hot gases along a helical path inside the barrel.
With the ORNL technology, glass optical fibers are placed into the flutes. These flutes are either produced by the barrel manufacturer or subsequently retrofit. The sensor system contains a laser diode that sends a signal beam into the optical fibers parallel to the bore axis of the barrel.
Still this technology looks fucking awesome and I believe it goes without saying that I want one.