Laser technology to replace spark plugs?

You'll never need to set the gaps or file the contacts again if this tech recently developed in Japan takes off.

There is an article on this in The Register

The good old internal combustion engine just refuses to lay down and die even in the face of such well hyped technology as electric motors and hydrogen fuel cells.  Heck we've even hooked electric motors to internal combustion engines to create hybrids and some folks have successfully run petrol engines on hydrogen based fuels or even pure hydrogen.

Looking how far the good old IC motor has come since say the days of the Ford flatheads of the early 1950s I wonder where we will be with them in another half century or so, because I'm prepared to bet they are still with us then.

And I struggle with the electronics in an 1980s Pontiac.