
Upgrades
Seems to me that one might be a little pricier than the other but is does offer non destructive upgrades as the tech improves
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is developing a brain-computer interface it hopes could inject images directly into the visual cortex. news of the "Cortical Modem" project has emerged in transhumanist magazine Humanity Plus, which reports the agency is working on a direct neural interface (DNI) chip that …
Looks like Geordie La Forge's visor could be on the way.
BUT why does all this technology which can help mankind have to be developed as a spin-off from developing more efficient and more expensive ways of killing and maiming people?
Wouldn't it be nice if they renamed DARPA the Making-The-World-A-Better-Place Advanced Research Projects Agency, and left the budget untouched?
.. why does all this technology which can help mankind have to be developed as a spin-off from developing more efficient and more expensive ways of killing and maiming people?Wouldn't it be nice if they renamed DARPA the Making-The-World-A-Better-Place Advanced Research Projects Agency, and left the budget untouched?
Given that it's D for Defence rather than O for Offence, were Mr. Orwell still with us he may well conclude that they already have.
>BUT why does all this technology which can help mankind have to be developed as a spin-off from developing more efficient and more expensive ways of killing and maiming people?
People in power will have actively worked towards gaining power in the past, so we can assume that they will actively work to gain more power in the future. Their power gives them money, which they can use to employ smart people. The smart people produce technologies that give more power to their paymasters. Repeat.
That said, the difference between a tool and a weapon is in the hand of the wielder. John Harrison was the first person to create a timepiece accurate enough to allow a naval navigator to accurately determine their longitude - thus allowing the British navy to make better use of their fleet. Explosives are used for mining and quarrying- essential for the resources our society uses. Spy satellites can be used to monitor one's own agriculture, as well as seeing what the enemy is up to. Methods in treating traumatic injuries in overseas wars have been brought back to home nations.
Sounds more like Batou's eyes, to me. (considering the form factor is identical, THAT would have been a good gratuitous graphic).
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/f/f6/Ghost_in_the_Shell_Stand_Alone_Complex_Batou.png/230px-Ghost_in_the_Shell_Stand_Alone_Complex_Batou.png
1: Wait for this device to become ubquitious and hackable
2: Hack as many as possible to only - and I mean only - show the most weird eposides of The Krankies Klub and KTV
3: Make your demands, and wait. World powers will capitulate to every demand you make.
I only ask for 10% of all profits you make based on GPD.
Yours,
Steven R
I bet the group can all speak Klingon.
Assuming this gets developed to produce reasonable vision, a wifi or bluetooth link to the car might be useful for say reversing using the car's rear camera, my only worry would be when I'm driving in traffic and suddenly get a pop up telling me 'an important security update is available install now!' or it blue screens with a message ' please replace the batteries you have less than 2% remaining.
And how long before the NSA/GCHQ et. al. work out how to low-level exploit these? I'm assuming that the ability to do so will be built-in at the firmware/hardware level and that there will be a thriving underground trade in 'clean' models (ie - not compromised by Gubbermint - whether they are compromised by your supplier is another matter).
The article doesn't specifically say: is this thing going to be surgically implanted? If yes, why specify a low $10 price when the cost of the surgery will be a hundred times that? If no surgery is needed then I can understand the low cost requirement... although it does then raise the question of how the device will stimulate the cortex effectively through skin&bone.
US military researchers are trying to turn in-flight refueling tankers into laser-shooting "airborne energy wells" for charging drones, and they want the public's help to figure out how.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) published a request for information (RFI) from anyone willing and able to contribute their tech, with a few caveats. It needs to fit on existing in-flight refueling tankers (the newer KC-46 and Cold War-era KC-135, specifically) and be able to deliver 100kW of power.
Militaries around the world have been using in-flight refueling for decades to extend aircraft patrols and long-range missions. With a history of development stretching back to the 1920s, the practice has since developed into a standard part of operating an air fleet powered by aviation fuel.
US government sponsored research is casting new light on the security of blockchain technology, including the assertion that a subset of a distributed ledger's participants can gain control over the entire system.
The finding is part of a study [PDF] conducted by IT security researchers at Trail of Bits and commissioned by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency that points to several ways in which the immutability of blockchain – the distributed ledger on which Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies rely – can be called into question.
Intel has shed some light on its participation in a DARPA program set up to aid the development of autonomous combat vehicles that can go off road.
The x86 giant on Tuesday outlined its involvement in the US government agency's Robotic Autonomy in Complex Environments with Resiliency – Simulation (RACER-Sim) project.
RACER-Sim is part of DARPA's wider RACER program to foster the advancement of self-driving machines that can keep up with human-controlled vehicles over tough terrain amid conflict and other real-world situations. RACER-Sim, as its name suggests, involves the creation of simulations in which these autonomous systems can be developed and tested before being tried out in the real world. That's useful because it's a good idea to perfect the code as much as possible in a virtual world, where it can do no actual harm or damage, before putting it behind the wheel of pricey and dangerous hardware.
DARPA announced a second successful test of its hypersonic cruise missile, adding that the weapon, capable of speeds in excess of Mach 5, is ready for real-world use.
DARPA has been testing hypersonic weapons for several years. The program in question, called the Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept (HAWC), began in 2016 with Raytheon as a partner. Raytheon's HAWC first flew in 2021, and this latest test used a design manufactured by Lockheed Martin and Aerojet Rocketdyne.
Hypersonic weapons are any missile that travels at Mach 5 or faster, but with an added caveat: they can be controlled. Traditional missiles often exceed Mach 5 as well, but can't be steered once they're launched.
A new DARPA initiative aims to ultimately give AI systems the same complex, rapid decision-making capabilities as military medical staff and trauma surgeons who are in the field of battle.
The In the Moment (ITM) program, which is right now soliciting research proposals, aims to develop the foundations of expert machine-learning models that can make difficult judgment calls – where there is no right answer – that humans can trust. This study could lead to the deployment of algorithms that can help medics and other personnel make tough decisions in moments of life and death.
"DoD missions involve making many decisions rapidly in challenging circumstances and algorithmic decision-making systems could address and lighten this load on operators … ITM seeks to develop techniques that enable building, evaluating, and fielding trusted algorithmic decision-makers for mission-critical DoD operations where there is no right answer and, consequently, ground truth does not exist," DARPA said.
Early-internet pioneer Jack Haverty has described the early structure of the internet as experimental – and said not much has changed since.
Haverty was a protégé of Professor JCR Licklider in the early '70s, when he worked on the then brand new ARPANET. He is widely credited with developing File Transfer Protocol, the RFC format still used for internet standards, and one of the world's first email systems. A contemporary of the likes of Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn, Haverty later joined Oracle in the '90s and worked alongside folks like Tim Berners-Lee, establishing linkages between web servers and databases.
Updated The UK's efforts to copy US government and military innovation outfit DARPA are stalling, according to a leading figure in research and development.
Appearing before the Science and Technology Committee, Sir John Kingman, former chair of UK Research and Innovation, told MPs this morning that ARIA – the Advanced Research and Invention Agency – was a good example of departmental research spending that could be cut, sidelined or delayed.
"A very high-profile example would be ARIA, which has been this big plan for the Boris Johnson government, and yet here we are a few years into the Johnson government and it still hasn't even begun to happen," he told MPs.
DARPA, the famously scattershot defence research agency of people's hearts, has turned its attention to recent announcements of planned and actual communications satellite constellation launches, asking: "Why can't these things all just talk to each other?"
The agency – which recently asked US defence contractors if they fancy building an ekranoplan, and launched a convoy-defence drone that sneezes other drones to death – is seeking to create a cheap new optical communications system that would allow newly launched satellites to exchange large quantities of data quickly, easily and securely, even if they are from different constellations.
The project, known as the Space-Based Adaptive Communications Node or Space-BACN – which believe it or not is officially pronounced "space bacon" – aims to link together future satellite constellations to provide a vast, thousands-strong aggregated communications network.
ROUNDUP Welcome to this week's gallimaufry of gaucheness, as we present a selection of daft stories to make you glad that you're not that person.
Legendarily loopy US military (and now also non-military) ideas factory DARPA has launched a $1m competition for underground robots.
This September, the SubT Challenge will pit eight teams against each other in a series of tests in the Louisville Mega Cavern, deep under the surface of the US state of Kentucky.
Sadly, despite the number of entrants lending itself to a one-on-one elimination contest, culminating in a mighty fight to the death between the last two 'bots standing after destroying their foes in a traditional knockout structure, all eight teams will compete alongside each other in tests to detect certain items and situations vital in rescue work.
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