He accomplished this by using a strobe light to freeze the action of the bullet at a millionth of a second.

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The strobe light ignited, and the distress call was sent.

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His weapon: a rolling, 3-foot-tall machine (think R2-D2 from Star Wars) called the Xenex that bathes hospital rooms with intense, millisecond pulses of ultraviolet light from a high-wattage strobe light.

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The Rogue kits also include flash benders, which are reflective white panels that are attached to the strobe to control the direction of light.

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The signal preemption idea was born in the early 1970s, when 3M devised a system that let emergency vehicles change traffic signals with pulses of strobe lights (later, infrared light) transmitted to receivers mounted over roadways.

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Senators heard Mr. Lake insist that the need to inform Congress about the administration's fateful decision to give Iran a "green-light" never occurred to him, to Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott or to any of the other participating policy-makers.

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It hasn't been just new projects that are making headlines: In November, even the Empire State Building got a makeover, when the owners installed a new LED light system whose millions of colors can ripple, cross-fade, strobe and burst in time to the tunes of Alicia Keys or a special New Year's show.

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