The US FBI has been working with the FAA and the Air Line Pilots Association to crack down on people pointing lasers at aircraft. "Reported incidents of laser attacks on aircraft in flight in the US have increased more than 1,000 percent since 2005, according to the FAA, from 283 up to 3,960 in 2013 - an average of 11 incidents a day."

Per the Air Line Pilots Association, " reports of aircraft laser illuminations in the U.S. have increased sharply over the past few years from 2836 in 2010 to 3,960 last year."

Sergio Patrick Rodriguez, 26, now has the dubious distinction of being sentenced to "14 years in federal prison, a term prosecutors believe to be among [California's] longest for such a crime." Rodriguez's gang membership and criminal record were likely factors in his sentence, as was using a laser that is called 13 times more powerful than most laser pointers.

Has anyone seen this happen? Or experienced it as a pilot or aircraft passenger?

Nokia's latest offering for Windows Phone 8, the Lumia Icon is out for review, and though early reviewers approve of the hardware's build quality, battery life and high-resoution screen and camera, many cite concerns about the OS and its app ecosystem and conclude the phone fails to compel.

Sporting a 2.22Ghz quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor, 2GB of RAM, 32GB internal storage (but no SD slot), a 20 megapixel rear-facing camera, a 1.2 megapixel front-facing camera, and a 5" 440ppi, HD-capable 1920x1080 resolution screen, the phone is no slouch. But reviews by Wired , Digital Trends , Gizmodo , The Verge , and IGN all use conflicting language like "best Windows phone ever made" and "pretty but flawed," "fantastic," and "bland," or "beautiful" and "unrefined." What's going on here? Is this a winner for the struggling Windows Phone brand, or does it fall short of the mark?

Lastly, rumours are circulating that Microsoft is considering Android compatibility. Is this going to be the secret sauce, or will it undermine WinPhones the way Windows compatability led to poor sales of IBM's OS/2?

Scientists working with the powerful BICEP (Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization) telescopes at the South Pole may have just discovered evidence of the Big Bang Theory that has been sought since the 1970s . Observing the light of 13.8 billion years ago, the team of astronomers, led by John Kovac of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, have detected gravitational waves (ripples in the fabric of space-time).

These gravitational waves have long been theorized but never observed, and provide strong evidence of a theory of cosmology called Inflation , in which the Big Bang led to an instantaneous inflation of the universe and expansion at speeds that surpass the speed of light. Astrophysicists have been trying to find convincing evidence of the theory for 35 years.

Says the New York Times, "If corroborated, Dr. Kovac's work will stand as a landmark in science comparable to the recent discovery of dark energy pushing the universe apart, or the Big Bang itself." They add:

Confirming inflation would mean that the universe we see, extending 14 billion light-years in space with its hundreds of billions of galaxies, is only an infinitesimal patch in a larger cosmos whose extent, architecture and fate are unknowable. Moreover, beyond our own universe there might be an endless number of other universes bubbling into frothy eternity, like a pot of pasta water boiling over.

We live in amazing times.