Tri-corders, alpine oxy-pills: Acropocalypse at DARPA

It's been a busy few days for the renowned US military crazytech research bureau, DARPA*. The Pentagon wack-profs have announced plans to develop a new drug which will acclimatise troops to thin mountain air very fast, and unveiled plans to make small, portable magnetic-resonance Tricorder-style scan gizmos. They have also …

[amanfromMars]

MultiDimensional Parallels ....... Turing Test Passed and Proofed Valid.

"("Heterostructural" apparently means the same as "multiferroic", if that's any help.)" .... Polyamoral in XXXXStreams has Assimilated Meaning Supporting Both Disciplines.

AIReal Field Scenarios for Troupers rather than Troopers. And Amazon Hot in Cool Stealth .... Cold Fusion Intellectual Property Drive.

Would DARPA be Tempted by the Programmed Party of the Erotic Left of Centre? A QuITe Sinful Device of XXXXQuisite Beta Tastes. AIdDevice Available to Any and All with a Will to Proceed with Ready Means. ...... and Stout Hearts

[Ed Blackshaw]

CUTNPASTE

Am I the only one who misreads that every time?

[Mark Burton]

Pah!

DARPA - Does Anyone Really Pay Attention?

--Paris, cos I work there.

[Richard Joseph]

alpine oxy-pills...

.....a new performance-enhancing drug to test for at your next athletic/cycling/marathon (delete as applicable) meet :-D

[Steven Raith]

@Ed Blackshaw

No, I had a double-take there too.

Lewis, I can only assume you have either far too much time on your hands at Reg Towers, or you have an excellent supply of illicit substances coursing through your veins.

Now, I'm off to gain donations for the Benevolent Engineers Extra Relaxation fund from my colleagues.

Hey, it's for a good cause, if you appreciate having a network connection. And fingers...

Steven R

[Anonymous Coward]

@Richard Joseph

There are already drugs commonly used by sports cheats that could be suitable, specifically EPO, which increases the number of red blood cells in the body. Presumably this would result in greater oxygen transport to the muscles and would counteract the effect of hypoxia... True it is known to thicken the blood, but you can't win 'em all.

[Anonymous Coward]

What? No mention of Tom Clancy?

Tom Clancy's Rainbow six raised the idea of troops, in this case special forces, using a portable, though not handheld, device to see through walls and pin-point the positions of people inside the building prior to entry.

The Aliens(s) and Startrek references of course predate his book but the situation described in the book probably most accurately matches the application that Darpa envision. No doubt there are other examples of the same idea in evidence.

[prathlev]

Wall hack?

If war wasn't so terrible this would really be cool: Real life wall hacking! I could imagine a couple of <insert antagonist stereotype> lying on the floor using their last breath uttering "CHEAT wall-H4XORz!!11"...

/prathlev

[Richard]

Respect

Lewis, with your acronym generating skills, you'd be a top man in just about any IT organisation!

[Richard Joseph]

@Anonymous Coward

EPO, yeh, I knew that. Lived in Spain before, Cycling is big there, so news of EPO/doping is easy to come by.

Sorry, the drug thing was my sad attempt at humour....

[Francis Boyle]

@Lewis

NEW-HOTNESS is good but could we have the similar creativity following the asterisk. It's always "The Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency". How about for a change making it say "Dubious Activities Requiring Plentiful Affluence" or "Dodgy AI and Robotics Party Animals" I'm sure you could do better. Or you could just ask amanfromMars.

[amanfromMars]

Spilling the Beans.

If we were each individually made aware that One is responsible for One's Own Future ProgramMIng and the State will Provide All Necessary Tools and Programs, One's Future would be AI Voyages of dDiscovery . And Man would Live to Learn of Everything Reduced and Virtually Revealed in Imaginanation.

As Man's Evolution Jumps into Virtual Machinery Fields, it is as well to know that if you are not PreProgramMIng your Own Future, you're just Funding A.N.Other's Pleasures and Leisure with Redundant Degenerative Legacy Programs. ...... And there is an Inherent Danger in such Closed Systems .... http://groups.google.com/group/alt.illuminati/msg/b11c145aa06f09d0?

[Scu]

Defence?

Err, DARPA is a US Agency, so it actually stands for "Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency ." Note that there is no 'c' in "Defense."

Spell UK things the way you want, but when referencing a specific US thing, spell it right.

Thanks for listening.

[Henry]

Dear Lewis

SInce the tone of your article is unbridled scepticism, that fact that it was DARPA funded research that is allowing you to publish your guffaws on the internet in the first place should at least muffle the sneering tones. Perhaps your efforts would be better suited to reporting on the latest developments in Roman Siege engines.

[Anonymous Coward]

DARPAgasm

I lawled. That is all

[Chris G]

@Scu

The language that Americans speak is purportedly English and the writer is English so bugger what you yanks think of spelling. If you can't spell correctly, design your own language and stop chewing ours up.

[Anonymous Coward]

CUTNPASTE

That's some kind of toothpaste for vagina dentata, no?

[Anonymous Coward]

@Ed Blackshaw & Steven Raith

Frankly, i'm surprised you haven't been whipped by la mod (although I read it the same way).

DARPA - Duplicitous Anal Retentive Porkbarrel Architects

[Steven Raith]

"vagina dentata"

Is that like in the hentia I have where the lasses all have shark-gobs for flanges?

I can see why they might want toothpaste I suppose, but I can't see me wanting to check that out in the flesh, as it were.

Steven R

Telling himself that it's not real, It's Not Real, IT'S NOT REAL.

:-0

Paris because, well, use your imagination.

[Anonymous Coward]

Does that mean ...

... that if Marines have see-through-wall-movement-detecting-kit a la Aliens, that they have to "take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure?"

> "Or you could just ask amanfromMars." -- No, please! Don't encourage him!

Mines the Space Marine jacket.

[gizmo23]

"alpine oxy-pills"

Isn't that called "cocaine" ?

Paris, obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

Titleless

RAHA is estonian for MONEY

[Daniel]

@Chris G

While I normally take a fairly laid back approach to regional spelling, and tend to consider those who rabidly insist on either British OR American spelling to be a bit thick, in this case, Scu is more or less correct. Not because we are talking about a generically American "thing," but because we are talking about a proper noun. As such, it has a definitive spelling. If you insist on spelling it with your own regional variation, even if your region is the oldest, you are wrong. If you doubt this, go back and ask your 5th grade grammar instructor.

-Daniel

[Scary]

Coca?

In the Andean countries of South America they chew coca leaves to cope with the altitude, I wonder if the new pills are based on anything like this. The US army bulk buying coca leaves could provide a nice boost to Bolivia's ailing economy.

[Luke McCarthy]

Fireball XL5

Can they develop oxygen pills which will prevent you from exploding in the vacuum of space and protect you from deadly doses of cosmic radiation?

[graeme leggett]

Oxygum!

we all know American troops like gum, so what better form to use it in.

I hope the bit of DARPA handling it is coordinated with the unit doing waterjet boots.

Then we can get an Ocean Patrol setup with fast submarines that can fly - hey isn't that one of their other projects.

Too many anime fans inside DARPA?

[Cortland Richmond]

FCC nixes UWB X-Ray spec for the masses

The FCC wants to keep through-wall sensing out of the hands of ordinary folks.

http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Engineering_Technology/News_Releases/2002/nret0203.html