US Army to Try Out New, Anime-based Uniforms

PenguinRadio writes "This is being reported in a few places, most notably USA Today which has an article about the US Army teaming up with MIT to develop a new nanotechnology-based outfit for our soldiers that can detect bio hazards, injury, and other funky things. The 5 year, $50 million grant also wants to look at bending light around the uniform to create some sort of invisibility." CNET has another story. The Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies has its own web page, of course.

Comments

judging from the picture...

[pb]

Didn't I see this in the Final Fantasy Movie?

Anime?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm.. What does Anime have to do with any of this? Are Slashdot editors hoping that female soldiers will be outfitted with scantily-clad, breast-hugging Anime style getups?

Re:Anime?

[susano_otter]

Did you look at the artist's rendition? The guy is clearly ripping off Masamune Shirow. And the actual suit concepts (which are really unrelated to the artist's rendition) aren't that much different from the hard Japanese SF anyway.

But seriously, look at the gun in that picture. It's obviously a Seburo!

Re:Anime?

[TheGreenLantern]

Ghost in the Shell is probably what the author was referring to. The heroine in the flick has some sort of funky overcoat that turns her invisible, but for some unknown reason she only wears it when naked.

Well, OK, we know what the real reason is (fanboys), but just try to go with the whole suspension of disbelief thing.

re: Anime?

[Khan Fused]

... that wasn't a chameleon-suit overcoat. That was *HER* that could blend with the background. Hence, the nudity.

Hence, the fanboys sitting very close to the large-screen TV's with drool-sponges in front of them.

Re:Anime?

[Indras]

Only if the female uniforms come complete with a cat tail attached to the back of the pants...

Re:Anime?

[Rimbo]

Not only does the picture look like something out of anime, but there's also the issue of the gravity-defying D-cup breasts in the picture, long a staple of anime SF. This artist watched too much Bubblegum Crisis or Ghost in the Shell.

But it brings up an interesting thought sort of in-line with the last line of the C|Net article. Imagine having a troop of women wearing these things dealing with issues in the Middle East, where women are second-class citizens. "Tell me to be subservient now, willya?" blam blam blam... It's no big thing for a woman to be a good fighter to Westerners, but in the Middle East, talk about adding insult to injury... You're not only getting killed, but you're getting killed by seemingly invicible warriors protected by armor and endowed with superhuman abilities, but by squads of seemingly invincible, armored, superhuman women.

Too awesome.

Re:Anime?

[An Onerous Coward]

As someone who has actually been in the Army, this is something we very definitely do not want. Any pleasure derived from seeing certain military type women scantily clad must be weighed against the risk of, well, seeing certain other military type women scantily clad.

In the end, the reward just isn't worth the risk.

Re:Anime?

[Sri Lumpa]

but in the Middle East, talk about adding insult to injury... You're not only getting killed, but you're getting killed by seemingly invicible warriors protected by armor and endowed with superhuman abilities, but by squads of seemingly invincible, armored, superhuman women.

Yeah, but they won't care because they won't know because they will be invisible anyway (now if only the clothes could be invisible that may keep their mind away from the battle).

Re:Anime?

[JonWan]

Yeah, but they won't care because they won't know because they will be invisible anyway (now if only the clothes could be invisible that may keep their mind away from the battle).

A 1000 Kiko Kamens rushing the enemy lines.

Re:Anime?

[susano_otter]

So let me get this straight: I cite one of the premiere comic book writer/artists of all time, and you tell me to "go pick up a comic book some time"?

And no-one besides you is debating where "the good stuff" comes from (although Masamune Shirow, Katsuhiro Otomo, Kazuo Koike, Terry Moore, Moebius, and others do seem to be making a significant contribution)--I merely pointed out the obvious relationship between the artist's rendition and the characteristic mechanical designs of Masamune Shirow. I mentioned Shirow specifically because his designs are fairly unique, and look substantially different from more mainstream designs. It's easy to tell when someone is copying Shirow, as opposed to one of an infinite number of "typical" anime artists.

But now I'm curious: who, in your opinion, is producing the "good stuff" here in the U.S.?

Re:Anime?

[ahde]

You anime people need to get out more.

It looks just as much like the Sci-Fi book covers of the 50's & 60's (search for Frank Franzetta) as any anime -- which really was just a rip off of pulp magazine illustrations from the 20's and 30's.

Big breasts and narrow waists and dove eyes are as American as Barbie and Snow White and Betty Boop. There are distinct characteristics of anime, but these aren't it.

Re:Anime?

[susano_otter]

You 50's pop culture people need to get out more.

I was noting the (to me) obvious similarity between a single [manga] artist's distinctive mechanical designs. You seem to be implying that all I do all day is watch Sailor Moon, while at the same time claiming the same familiarity with the works of Frank Frazetta that I claim for Masamune Shirow. Do we have to get into a flamewar, or can we stop the name-calling now?

Re:Anime?

[Bob Uhl]

It's no big thing for a woman to be a good fighter to Westerners...

Tell that to N^2 statistical studies. Say, for example, those which have mandated 4-man stretcher teams rather than 2-man teams due to the oddly decreased amount of available strength. Hate to break it to you, but a million year of evolution aren't turned around in twenty years.

Sure, there are women who are good fighters. Indeed, there are many who could beat me easily. But I'm not a representative sample of the male population. ISTR that the world record for one of the women's footraces is the same as one needs to qualify for a highschool boys' team. The simple fact of the matter is that the average woman is nowhere near the average man in strength and fighting ability.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. The average man is nowhere near the average woman in other areas. We're just different, as any three-year-old can figure out, but apparently grown-up PC-types need to have explained.

Re:Anime?

[JabberWokky]

This thread caught me eye, so I clicked on the articles. I assume we're talking about the CNet and USA Today picture. I'm a collector of 50s and 60s pulps (I was a dealer at SF Conventions for awhile), and am very familiar with Frazetta, Boris and friends. I am also a big fan of Shirow, Yukito Kishiro and others.

The image is likely heavily influenced by Shirow - not necessarily judging by the character design, which is not detailed in either rendition enough to make a judgement call, but by the way it is colored and the way the translucent leg is drawn. Shirow used to work with assistants, and then went for a long period without any (a rare thing in the world of Japanese comic artists). During this time his style matured and became very detailed and shifted from using rubtones to sketched hinted details in the shadows - as well as the color washes that are in this image.

The posture is pretty boring for a Masume girl... plus the suit is too enclosed, and there's no detail on the face. Also, the helmet is not like his work at all. But then, the image is too small to make out any more details. Really, it's the articulation of the leg, the apparant detail in the hands, the coloring (and color choice) and organtic buildings that hint at Shirow - round the buildings off a bit more, and put some big "rabbit ears" on her, or remove some sections of the armor, and you've got a really nice fanart. :)

--
Evan

How Are These Anime-Based?

[John_Booty]

You see this sort of thing (powered and/or cloaking exosuits) in anime, but you also see it in every other walk of science fiction too. ex: Starship Troopers, every other comic book ever published, etc, etc.

Neither of the articles mentions anime either. I'm just wondering where the "anime" reference in the article title came from. Left field, apparently, unless I missed something! (which is entirely likely)

Re:How Are These Anime-Based?

[John_Booty]

...Besides, if they were really ANIME-based, these suits would be easily pilotable by 13 year-olds.

In fact, they'd probably be pilotable ONLY by 13-year olds, as the result of some plot twist!

Re:How Are These Anime-Based?

[ghostlibrary]

It's anime-like because, in combat, the two sides will simply hang back and stare at each other for a while. Then both will fire off everything they have with explosive fury. When the dust settles... both sides will still be standing, but the collateral damage to the area will be _huge_ and there will be massive civilian casualties.

Oh, wait, that's how modern military actions are now. Alas.

Re:How Are These Anime-Based?

[jkujawa]

Look at the article, specifically, the artist's depiction.

Re:How Are These Anime-Based?

[pizen]

In fact, they'd probably be pilotable ONLY by 13-year olds, as the result of some plot twist!

But only if the suit turns out to be your enemy.

Re:How Are These Anime-Based?

[reemul]

Well, since most of the folks on here apparently only know Starship Troopers from the suckass movie - where they not only aren't in armor, they don't even have long sleeved shirts - I'm glad at least someone made the connection. Robert Heinlein *invented* the idea of powered armor in that book. Anime may have borrowed it, but it was RAH who started it all.

Though the artist rendering does demonstrate what sorts of comic books that guy reads. At least he didn't do the female version, with breasts each bigger than the helmet. Too bad the artist missed the important point that with nano-scale materials, the suit could funtion while still being flexible enough that you wouldn't need those multi-part joints, which are only needed in bulky or rigid materials. But it looked cool.

-reemul

Re:How Are These Anime-Based?

[wheany]

At least he didn't do the female version, with breasts each bigger than the helmet.

Look at the picture again. It may not have helmet-size breasts, but I definately see an armored boob.

Re:How Are These Anime-Based?

[Have Blue]

Or your mother.

Wait, sorry, that's 15-year olds.

Re:How Are These Anime-Based?

[Tattva]

But don't forget the heroine will be unscratched and complely unclad except for super-short shorts and a sailor shirt and will pose with her feet apart yet her knees together, so she can be both balanced and modest at the same time.

And the battle will take place in a completely denuded desert area with a bunch of rock spires and outcropppings that slide and explode all over the place

and...

nevermind!

Re:How Are These Anime-Based?

[reemul]

I can't comment on whether some anime featuring powered armor appeared before the book, though I would tend to doubt it as Heinlein won the 1959 Hugo award for Starship Troopers. (The Hugo isn't awarded for comics, this was for the actual book.) I've seen several places claim that Heinlein invented powered armor in that work. Maybe they were incorrect, but given that you weren't even within a generation on your guess as to when the book was written - Google is your friend - it's possible that your recollection is simply off after so much time.

Re:How Are These Anime-Based?

[BlueboyX]

Alot of you guys aren't familiar with some of the older (as in >25 years ago) science fiction. If you were, you would see where ALOT of the anime stuff is coming from.

For example, in a billboard in AI city is the title of an English sci-fi novel of the same basic storyline.

old news

[kb3edk]

We Metal Gear fans have long known that stealth camo and nanomachines became standard equipment for FoxHound operatives in 1995. "Find... Big Boss! Destroy... Outer Heaven!"

Re:old news

[TheGreenLantern]

Suprisingly, infiltrating enemy strongholds using cigarettes and a cardboard box seldom works in real life.

Re:old news

[daeley]

If they were a Darwin Award recipient, doesn't that mean it *didn't* work? ;)

Re:old news

[jgerman]

Yes and cigarettes don't kill you quite as fast as the game would lead you to believe.

Power?

[beninkster]

How do they plan to power these things???

Army trained hamster powered generators carried in backpacks perhaps? ;-)

Re:Power?

[silicon_synapse]

I'd imagine they could also use nanotechnology or piezoelectric sheets to generate enough electricity from body movement. I can't imagine nanobots use much power. Even while standing still, your body is moving a lot.

Re:Power?

[kilroy_hau]

You need to put your SCV's to gather minerals and vespene gas. That's all that's needed, really

Re:Power?

[bheerssen]

Perhaps with heel-strike generators that use electrostrictive polymers installed in the boot heels...

Re:Power?

[SanLouBlues]

With the extra strength they get from the armor, they'll be able to carry reasonably large armored batteries.

Re:Power?

[Spit_Fire1]

probably through nuclear fission, so that when you kill one of these "anime warriors" you not only kill him, but his side, your side, a three square mile area around him. So we get about 15 of these, go into enmy territory and split up, let them shoot first and *poof* we win( didn't they try that in WWII?)

Re:Power?

[Winged Cat]

Unfortunately, even large batteries don't last that long. And what do you do when (not if) the power runs out? In a tank that's out of gas, you grab your sidearm, pop the hatch, and run before the artillery frags your immobile tin can. Getting out of these things without power is a bit trickier, and your "sidearm" is likely to require the suit's power to carry (maybe even to fire)...

Frankly, the power requirement is the single biggest technical challenge in building these sorts of things. The actuators, sensors, special gizmos...all those things are doable and simple, compared to the sheer challenge of powering the thing for any decent length of time.

Re:Power?

[Winged Cat]

Err...SCVs are these things, just simplified for (relatively) civilian use. So, how do you power the SCVs?

Build a command center, you say? But you need working SCVs to do that. Catch-21... ;)

Re:Power?

[bryan1945]

How about an advanced fuel cell, where you could carry extra slap-in cartridges. Of course you'd want a to use a metal hydride. This plus the piezoelectric stuff people have already posted could give you a lot more time than straight batteries, but would that even be enough?

Guess we will find out!

Re:Power?

[Winged Cat]

There are more efficient ways to generate electricity from heat. Photovoltaics get somewhere less than 30% of the energy from heat. Standard steam turbines get 35% easily. More advanced turbines can get over 50%.

Unless that car was using some kind of advanced photovoltaics, or its designers simply didn't know better (or wanted to avoid the potential mechanical breakdowns of turbines, which might be good reason in itself)...

Re:Power?

[Winged Cat]

but would that even be enough?

Possibly. Possibly not. Practical fuel cell lifespan is not yet known over as wide a variety of applications as, say, gasoline or batteries, but the core problem is that machines like these just tend to take More Power Than That. ;)

Anime-Based?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's funny, neither article makes any sort of mention about anything regarding anime.

Oh, it must be that Slashdot editorial style. "Well, that picture looks sort of like something vaguely reminiscent of anime. OH! I KNOW! The uniforms are ANIME-BASED!"

Sheesh. And I bet they wonder why subscriptions aren't as high as they expected.

Re:Anime-Based?

[Chris Burke]

What's funny is your inability to detect sarcasm or verbal irony.

Of course the suits aren't based on anime... They are just a lot like what appears -in- anime. Evoking the image these DARPA researchers were sitting around in the lab watching Ghost in the Shell to get ideas for new weaponry is humor through ridiculousness. The straight-man presentation of the headline is just good delivery.

Damn. If you couldn't get that, I bet you can't -stand- someplace that does that all the time, like the Register. Bet you send them email about every headline "Hey, your headline is not a true representation of what the article is about! And what's all this about 'outing'?"

50 mil... a good start I guess

[the_consumer]

Hate to say it, but most new technologies don't seem to get very far until the pentagon decides they're useful. Hopefully this will prime the pump of a nanotech industrial revolution.

over here....turn around....

[Drunken_Jackass]

...also wants to look at bending light around the uniform to create some sort of invisibility

Finally, the goodness of a second-class Arnold movie makes it's way into the military!! Now it's just a matter of time until we're cuttin' peoples heads off with extendible boomerang blade thingies ala P2.

Bend Light

[KingKire64]

The army is gearing up for the Predator invasion if we too are invisable we shall have the upperhand... Buwahahahaha

Re:Bend Light

[Chris Burke]

And they all said my horrible hygiene was disgusting, and that I should bathe more! Little do they know that I'm preparing to SAVE THE WORLD!

Not science fiction?

[Gabrill]

Can even show proof of concept beyond an artist's rendition?

Re:Not science fiction?

[HanzoSan]

its not science fiction, this technology exsists in labs.

MIT i suppose has the technology in labs and the government is paying for the product.

Power Suits

[Mad Man]

I didn't realize that Starship Troopers (1960) or Predator (1987) were anime.

re: 5-year MIT program

[bob_clippy]

Supercharged shoes could release energy when soldiers jump, propelling them over a 20-foot wall.

Put me down for $100 on MIT for the 2007 NCAA torney.

Light bending?

[Marx_Mrvelous]

I don't buy it. Maybe *maybe* detectors on one side can replicate detectors from the other, but it can't be omnidirectional... you'd have one side "invisible" but only from one direction. Not very effective....

Re:Light bending?

[SanLouBlues]

Actually the light bending will be incorporated into the very skin of the soldiers, with a light mask to cover the eyes. They will have to fight naked of course, but this is causing the Joint Chiefs to rethink allowing women on the battlefield.

Of course, if the light gets bent around the soldier, how will any hit their eyes so they can see?

Re:Light bending?

[booyah]

Reminds me of a great fantasy series...

in the series (Recluse series by LE Modersett JR) the "good guys" can magickly bend light around them so hey you can travel without being seen.... but you can't see a dang thing either :-)

Re:Light bending?

[Aexia]

I think it's poor wording to use invisible. It's not going to be some Predator-like special effect. It's going to be camo that changes to match your surroundings, like a cameleon.

Is this really a good thing

[Spit_Fire1]

Supercharged shoes could release energy when soldiers jump, propelling them over a 20-foot wall.
-What happens after the wall, is there also a parachute, or are you just supposed to land after your 20 foot fall.

Micoreactors could detect bleeding and apply pressure.
-So that the enemies crackers can cut off circulation in battle to help their side

Light-deflecting material could make the suit blend in with surroundings.
-So that the number of soilders hurt or killed by friendly fire increases.

MIT's research centers had been working on nanotechnology ideas long before getting involved with the Army, but not with military applications in mind.
-Isn't that how it always happens, soon the MIT reasercher will make a peace time achievment award.

Re:Is this really a good thing

[Dr.Dubious DDQ]

I find it pretty funny that evidently the budgeteers were taken in by all of this rhetoric, but slashdot readers can spot the flaws in a matter of minutes...

Mind you, it's not ALL bad - spinoff technologies from the otherwise flashy and unlikely projects might actually turn out to be useful (presumably the idea is that the shoes would then somehow absorb the impact to "recharge" after the jump, which doesn't seem too practical on a human being, but might have applications elsewhere in mechanical engineering, and the "fake blood" they come up with to test the pressure suits might turn out to have medical uses, and so on).

This probably isn't the most cost-effective way to GET to those spinoffs, but what can you do?...

Re:Is this really a good thing

[Salgak1]

Spit_Fire1 intoned. . .

Supercharged shoes could release energy when soldiers jump, propelling them over a 20-foot wall.
-What happens after the wall, is there also a parachute, or are you just supposed to land after your 20 foot fall.

A mini-parachute is a possibility, auto-deploying and auto-retracting. 20-foot falls aren't that bad, any paratrooper makes those all the time. Perhaps an auto-extending grapple-cord combo that quickly lowers you to the ground. . .

Micoreactors could detect bleeding and apply pressure.
-So that the enemies crackers can cut off circulation in battle to help their side

Assuming they CAN crack each individual suit, which would likely have its' own highly encrypted control override code. . . .can you say megabit RSA keypairs ???

Light-deflecting material could make the suit blend in with surroundings.
-So that the number of soilders hurt or killed by friendly fire increases.

Ever hear of IFF ??? Or perhaps beaconing on an obscure wavelength that is specially "watched" for and enhanced on the visor display ???

MIT's research centers had been working on nanotechnology ideas long before getting involved with the Army, but not with military applications in mind.
-Isn't that how it always happens, soon the MIT reasercher will make a peace time achievment award.

Military research often drives initial technology development. Transistors and microchips were developed for military purposes, for military satellites and suchlike... this is no different from a common pattern in research. . . .

Re:Is this really a good thing

[sharkey]

Perhaps an auto- extending grapple-cord combo

Yes! Bionic Commandos, finally!

Re:Is this really a good thing

[gartogg]

1) If the nanotech is any good, it can absorb energy from a landing (by cascading stiffness up the armor, and allowing the armor to take the pressure without crushing the guy inside) after a fall of much more than 20 ft. Also, I have jumped off of second stories of buildings higher than that often, and 20 ft. isn't THAT much to land from (especially if you know how to land decently.)

2) Ummm, is it just me or is connecting the suit's pressure control just the kind of feature you store in ROM, so it can't be hacked? Also, don't connect this segment of the suit to the (heavily encrypted) wireless network that you would have (but could turn off to sneak past sensors.)

If you were in a combat situation such as the ones that the USA is likely to face in the near (50 years or so) future, the enemy will not have tech. to be able do much damage in a combat zone, and as long as you have good hackers building the systems for the US, it should be ok (randomize frequency used, use encryption, and be able to switch both in combat in case of problem)

3) With mostly tech availible off the shelf, you could build a system that pinpointed who was using your armor and who wasn't, and display this inside of the helmet that the guys are wearing. The suit could also have night vision that would find hot bodies and check if they were wearing suits (which might be able to mask heat using insulation, by the way)

These ideas are all within the range of technology availible by the time we have nanotech to build the suits. (the real assumption here is the nanotech good enough to make the suits)

Re:Is this really a good thing

[Danse]

What happens after the wall, is there also a parachute, or are you just supposed to land after your 20 foot fall.

GO! GO! Gadget Pogo-Stick!

Re:Is this really a good thing

[efuseekay]

--Micoreactors could detect bleeding and apply pressure. --

MIT perhaps should join forces with the porn industry : I can see multitude of uses for this microreactors that apply plea^H^H^H^Hpressure at the right places...

Re:Is this really a good thing

[Rogerborg]

• If the nanotech is any good, it can absorb energy from a landing (by cascading stiffness up the armor, and allowing the armor to take the pressure without crushing the guy inside)

Oh please. Energy isn't the issue, it's acceleration. If you stiffen the armour, you just get smushed against the hard armour instead of the hard ground. In fact, stiffening is the last thing you want to do; you want as much articulation as possible to minimise the impulse. This "leap tall buildings in a single bound" claim is pure fantasy.

Re:Is this really a good thing

[gartogg]

A 20 foot fall is not that much, and many trained soldiers should be able to deal with it even without a suit. You could absorb SOME of the acceleration with a nanotech suit, and leave the rest to where it normally goes, ie. the feet as you hit the ground.

(This is speculation, I don't know about how the nanotech works) If the sudden negative acceleration, also known as jerk (3rd derivative of a position function), also known as impact, is spread out along body parts that can support the shock, you could absorb alot of the shock by stiffening the lower half of the suit and distributing the shock onto the hips. also, you sould use the suit to distribute the energy evenly along the body, so that there isn't so much pressure in any one place as to hurt a person inside.

Re:Is this really a good thing

[BlueboyX]

Just add some 'augmented reality' gear so that they know where their comrads are by little cursers over their heads (a la Halo multiplayer).

"Light-deflecting material could make the suit blend in with surroundings.
-So that the number of soilders hurt or killed by friendly fire increases"

Re:3 Words

[Stonehand]

I suspect that those currently fighting in Afghanistan would disagree with you. Air can't do it all -- not even close.

Re:Non-military Applications?

[Constrain_Me]

What we need to do is apply this to my room-mates clothes... create "soft--and almost invisible--clothing" that keep the biohazards in!!!

"how little soldiers are actually used"

[count0]

tell me - how are little soldiers actually used? and how little are they? Are we looking at a shrinking ray? or just recruiting wee folk from the Irish American community?

Re:"how little soldiers are actually used"

[Dr.Dubious DDQ]

just recruiting wee folk from the Irish American community?

"Green Clovers, Purple Hearts, Black Rifles..." ("The Taliban is after me lucky charms(tm)!"...)

Does it include?

[Lysander Luddite]

Since this is "obviously" anime inspired (and not just sci-fi in general) does it include colored hair for detecting airborne pathogens? Youknow, hair changes color when dangerous substance found. What about wildly contrasting colors that act as camoflage - not to hide from but to distort the enemies' aim.

Oh and don't forget the huge eyes that are obviously being used to detect hidden dangers like IR tripwires.

And don't forget that at least 50% of the soldiers wearing this gear are going to be females with more curves than a Jan and Dean song.

Ouch.

[mattbelcher]

Supercharged shoes could release energy when soldiers jump, propelling them over a 20-foot wall

But what happens when them come back down?

Re:Ouch.

[bje2]

That's when the helicopter comes out of their helmet, and they drift slowly to safety....

oh wait, that was inspector gadget..."go, go, gadget-copter!"

Don't Drink and Drive^H^H^H^H^HWatch Anime...

[Dr.Dubious DDQ]

No, no, this isn't flamebait or outright dismissal, but really - a "5 year contract" to develop what their description seems to portray as super Anime' Battle Armor(tm)? Somehow, I think this will end up being a big money pit for a long time before anything that flashy comes anywhere near to reality...

On a less cynical note, though, I imagine a lot of more "down-to-earth" inventions may come out of the program (advances in polymer science, immunoassay-like tests, and so on) if the people running it can refrain from wasting the money too badly in attempts to impress clueless legislators with flashy gadgets when the 5 year budget is over...

Re:3 Words

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

Infantry equipment historically has been chosen to be simple, for good reason. Imagine the logistics burden of keeping these things running.

Might not be a waste of money for Special Forces, though. Somebody extensively trained and highly motivated could use the full potential of something like this.

Then there's urban warfare, where you might be reluctant to use the full firepower of a tank or armed helicopter (if you cared about civilians). I know I'd want a suit like that if I were on occupation patrol in, say, Baghdad.

Bending light?

[spineboy]

In other words INVISIBILITY!!

Or am I mistaken... Soldiers will still need light to hit their eyes to be able to see.. I guess a pair of floating eyes won't raise too much suspicion.
What about infrared? Soldiers will still glow in that region.

Jumping 20 ft with some sort of exoskeleton still seems unlikely to me - remember, the landing deceleration won't be too much different than jumping off a 20 ft building without any exoskeleton (that hurts!).
It just doesn't seem plausible. The only thing useful I could see an exoskeleton useful for would be to lift/cary heavy loads. Any other ideas?

Anime = DBZ?

[Havokmon]

Here I thought MIT got $50 million to develop loose t-shirts and excessive narration.

Re:3 Words

[T5]

"[H]ow little soldiers are used"? Despite the mass media's fascination with aerial bombardment, much of the real work in any significant conflict comes at the expense of the grunts on the ground. Witness the current operations in Afghanistan. Most of the casualties occur in the ranks of ground troops. Anything that could enhance their survivability will go a long way toward reducing the overall casualty rate of our armed forces.

So what's wrong with bringing stealth technology to the individual soldier?

Re:3 Words

[Anonymous Coward]

You're Right!!! There's no way this will ever work.

Along with that...
- Man Will never Fly
- Man will never go to the moon
- No one needs more than 640 KB of memory
- Mainframes are dead
- Unix is dead

Why not...

[nochops]

With all the technology and money being poured into this, why not just make better remote warfare technologies?

I mean why bother making a uniform that provides instant medical care for the soldier, when you can completely remove the soldier from the battlefield?

Some may argue, but the primary method for getting what you want in a war is to KILL, therefore people are necessary in a war.

I acknowledge this, but while someone must get killed, doesn't it make sense to let the enemy's soldiers get killed, while yours are sitting comfy drinking coca-cola and watching pr0n?

The whole premise seems like a massive waste of time.

Re:Why not...

[Stonehand]

Human soldiers don't suddenly get stupid if you cut off communcations. If you use, say, 'bots, either they're autonomous in which case you have to be VERY good and VERY careful programming them -- I'm guessing that battlefield situational analysis is *hard*, especially in, say, urban environs where innocent civvies are involved -- or they're remote-control, in which case there's potential for jamming or disabling.

old news

[Dr. Awktagon]

I have a shirt that can track how many days I've gone without bathing, using a "handsfree background olfactory indicator". High tech stuff, really.

Also, I haven't tried it myself, but I think past the 30-day point it is indeed actually capable of bending light waves. It could probably also melt steel. Though due to the olfactory indicator mentioned above, it isn't exactly what I'd call "invisible"...

Can I have a million dollar grant for this invention? Erm, yeah, I'll understand if you don't want to deliver the check in person.

Re:Anime...?

[susano_otter]

The reference is in the artist's rendition. The weapon in the soldier's left hand is obviously plagiarized from Masamune Shirow's mechanical designs in Appleseed and Ghost in the Shell.

And the suit design itself bears a startling resemblance to the ORC suits, also in Shirow's Appleseed.

Re:3 Words

[drik00]

especially a waste considering how little soldiers are actually used anymore

Umm...just for the record, I have some friends (one in particular i know well) that are employed in the US Special Forces...Navy SEALS to be exact, ...go have a 12-pack with him sometime, hear the stories he tells (what he can talk about, at least), and tell me the US doesnt use soldiers any more. Sure we're not storming beaches like D-Day anymore, but you cannot have a military presence in an area without soldiers. Air/sea power can have an effect on the war effort, but when it comes to capturing and holding, infantry is the only answer.

It's a simple ploy by MIT

[Uttles]

OK, look at the situation: they want to do nanotechnology research, and they want big money to do it.

So what do you do? Tell the Army you can make soldiers invisible, especially with the war on terrorism happening, and watch the money come pouring in.

Cool trick

[fobbman]

Bend light? The best we've been able to accomplish around the lab is break wind.

Good news/Bad news

[BluedemonX]

The GOOD news is, every female soldier will now be a 38 DDD.

The bad news is, these suits are NOT proof against suddenly-appearing, demonic phallic tentacles.

An explanation of the "anime-based" thing

[Lendrick]

Because so many people seem to be having trouble with this...

One would assume that they said "anime-based" because these sorts of battle suits crop up a lot in anime (although generally without invisibility) -- take Bubblegum Crisis, for example. The suit pictured in the article--along with the drawing style and the fact that the wearer is apprently female--looks suspiciously anime-like.

Compare to this.

Also, a little note to the humor impaired: The phrase "anime-based" in the title of the story isn't there to imply that the Pentagon is actually trying to be anime-like. It's a joke.

Re:An explanation of the "anime-based" thing

[Lysander Luddite]

I think the editor/submitter likes anime too much and was just wanted to flout that knowledge. It certainly didn't seem like a joke to me, more like somebody wanting to be cute.

Re:An explanation of the "anime-based" thing

[daeley]

Lysander Luddite wrote, I think the editor/submitter likes anime too much and was just wanted to flout that knowledge. It certainly didn't seem like a joke to me, more like somebody wanting to be cute.

Luddites are so cute when they're indignant, aren't they? ;D

What's that army man holding in the picture?!

[garagekubrick]

Look closely at the Army's own webpage with their little picture of what the armor suit might look like...

He's holding a Pulse Rifle from Aliens!

I think it's really weird that a filmmaker decides to make a film that's a metaphor for Vietnam in which superior technology is beaten by an organic enemy; an obvious moral. But now the Army wants those Pulse Rifles.

Have any of you seen pictures of the OICW? It's the Army's latest attempt at a replacement infantry rifle for the aging M16 (A rifle which when first made, had a plastic stock stamped with Mattel's logo because they were manufacturing the plastic parts). I swear, the people in charge of defining the equipment a future soldier will be wearing must sit around all day and watch Aliens over and over and over...

I saw some recent footage of a new integrated networking system for mobile soldiers. All these soldiers are checking their PDAs and typing into their wristpad. In some way I can understand the advantage of having access to all that information, but time and again history has proven that soldier's overreliant on technology get their asses bit.

Re:What's that army man holding in the picture?!

[daeley]

I swear, the people in charge of defining the equipment a future soldier will be wearing must sit around all day and watch Aliens over and over and over...

It's only a problem if they're watching the Alien biotech more than the Marines' gear. :)

Re:Just Like the Book

[foobar104]

Starship Troopers definitely popped into my mind. A bunch of gorillas.

Apes, goddammit. At least get it right. They were called apes.

Re:Anime...?

[nomadic]

Well it has to use on of the slashdot keywords; open source, crypto, DMCA, anime, geek, etc. I guess it was the only thing that even remotely fit.

Marines dressing like nurses?

[infinite9]

Maybe our soldiers could dress like Japanese Nurses.

Re:Marines dressing like nurses?

[Chris Mattern]

You mean like this?

Chris Mattern

better cause

[LiquidPC]

I was watching the Discovery channel the other day and I saw a peice on asteroids and how little the government gives them ($1 million from the NASA budget) to help track the many floating around space. Alot that, if they hit earth, would cause a global catastrophy, even the end of mankind. Sure, military forces is a good cause for funding, but I, for one, would like to see more money spent in causes like that, as opposed to bending light and creating armor.

Re:better cause

[daeley]

Sure, military forces is a good cause for funding, but I, for one, would like to see more money spent in causes like that, as opposed to bending light and creating armor.

You're missing the big picture. If we get this technology developed, we can eventually bend light around the whole planet. You have to see us to hit us! ;)

The uniforms in "Aliens"

[mikosullivan]

This reminds me of the uniforms the marines wore in Aliens. They had cameras mounted in the helmets and streaming biofeedback back to the base unit where an incompetent lieutenent gives orders. I always thought those uniforms made a lot of sense, except for the incompetent lieutenent part.

-Miko

Illustration?

[gnovos]

Is it just me, or does the background in the "illustration" on the article look suspisciously like a post-apocolyptic wasteland?

Is it a good thing that the people desiging these suits are working from the premise that the world will be a shattered smoking dystopia? I'm not convinced they have the right frame of mind...

New dress code?

[BluedemonX]

Well, obviously now soldiers will be allowed to walk around with big, shaggy, turquoise or bright green hair.

a BAD IDEA

[maddogsparky]

Obviously this is a BAD IDEA, because some soldier's cloaking device will fail, he will be killed by some pathetic little humanoid and he will end up taking out a square mile with a thermo-nuclear explosion.

Or worse, he will be killed and we will have to give a primitive weapon to his killer as a trophy and abandon the planet.

Re:a BAD IDEA

[_ph1ux_]

actually his cloaking will fail and he will be killed then MIT will be sued by the family of said dead soldier on grounds that he would have lived had it not been for his lack of invisibilty.

america today.

Invisibility

[CommieLib]

From the article:

Light-deflecting material could make the suit blend in with surroundings

Light deflecting? Pining for the fjords? What kind of talk is that? Perhaps:

• Light reflecting: okay, you look like a mirror.
  
• Light refracting: Predator, but way hard (this is sci-fi).
  
  If there is anything to this, it would seem more likely it's some kind of display camoflage, like a computer display displaying the image of the cube wall behind it...

"Anime-inspired" is probably a better headline

[PenguinRadio]

It sure looks that way if you check out the pictures...

You've gotta start somewhere...

[Scratch-O-Matic]

Somebody years ago may have made the same remark about small, solid-state personal radios with headsets that are commonly used by soldiers and police now.

$50 million?

[theCURE]

give me $50 million, i'll show you how to disappear

Re:new uniform for the next Metal Gear Solid

[BitwizeGHC]

Pretty insightful! It sounds like Otacon may have been the designer for these...

Invisibility? Huh?

[RobertFisher]

The original poster was seriously confused. Don't people pay attention in physics classes anymore?

Simple considerations tell us that geometrical optics is an excellent approximation for any large object. The size of the object is much, much greater than a wavelength of light, so optics reduces to tracing rays from your eyeball to the source, and thence reflected or absorbed as the case may be. There is no such thing as "bending" visible light around a macroscopic object. You can make a suit which is nearly fully reflective (not a good stealth tactic -- you would appear like a nice shiny mirror), or nearly absorptive (in which case you would appear black), but there are plenty of ordinary materials that already work quite well for either purpose.

Since I presume that the nanotech folks at MIT are well aware of this fact, I doubt they proposed to "bend light" in their suits. Rather, they are probably going to implement something which Nature has long realized in chameleons and various other creatures : "invisibility" through blending in. Various miniaturized digital cameras could sense the background that a suit was in, and change the colorations on the suit (perhaps using a variation on the "digital ink" concept) accordingly. Hence, a suit could appear sandy-yellow when in the desert, white when in the desert, and camoflouge when in the jungle.

Since we all already doing essentially that when outfitting soldiers (no one wears the bright red of old British regulars anymore), it is unclear whether there is any real advantage to this concept, especially given the cost. Particularly since, to anyone equipped with infrared night vision goggles, every body temperature objects glow like a beacon.

Bob

Re:Invisibility? Huh?

[istartedi]

Indeed, when I first heard of a proposal to do this, circa 1986, it was referred to as "chameleon cloth".

With the right software, I bet you could get by with perhaps just 4 cameras. The tricky part is having the fabric be durable, and having the signals that travel to the pixels be fault tolerant. Also, it's got to be non-stick. Otherwise, any damage to the fabric, or anything stuck to it ruins the whole thing. OTOH, if the enemy delivers bright green sticky stuff that rains down on the soldiers, it will also rain down on the terrain. Another possible tactic is to fire a flare that backlights the soldiers with a strobe. Any latency in the camo system will be detectable, although cave-dwelling terrorists aren't likely to have such tech.

Re:Invisibility? Huh?

[praksys]

"Bending" light is not impossible.

Fibre-optic cables do it quite effectively. In principle you could make a suit which used something like nano-scale fibre-optic cables to re-route photons around the suit wearer. Of course this can't be done with current technology, or even plausible near future technology, so my guess is that they have something like your chameleon suit in mind.

Infra-red (or any other part of the spectrum) cammo is also possible.

A simple passive system might use insulating material distrubuted in such a way that the shape of the soldier, in infra-red, would be broken up. You would still see the glow - it just wouldn't look much like a person. This is pretty much the same principle as regular cammo, and could be done with today's tech.

A more complex active system might use really good insulation combined with some method for disipating heat that makes the soldier look even less like a person. Think portable air conditioning. In principle you could even store heat, and dump it at convenient intervals (i.e. when you think no one is watching). This kind of thing is not beyond the possiblities of near future tech.

Re:Invisibility? Huh?

[GooberToo]

I recently saw on a show...man, I wish I could remember which one it was, on either discovery or history channel where someone said in a passing statement about how the government has been researching this for a number of years already and that he would not be surprised if they already had a working prototype as of this late date.

Grrr

If only I can remember where I saw that....

Re:Invisibility? Huh?

[RobertFisher]

Unlike some other posters, at least you are in the realm of reality, so I think I'll respond.

Yes, fiber optics can bend light. The problem is that they are highly directional -- only incoming light from a very narrow angle will be piped. If you've ever had to splice two fiber optic cables together, you know just how difficult this is. So while a very narrow cone of light could be routed in principle, most light is just going to be reflected or absorbed as usual.

Infrared camo is more interesting. Yes, you could probably arrange for something like this. You'd effectively be wearing a thermos outfit, and it could potentially get very hot inside. It's unclear to me that you could built up heat for any significant duration without forcing the soldier into heat exhaustion. Yes, you could install an air conditioner, but thermodynamics tells us that even more heat is generated in the process.

Your best bet is probably not to try to capture all of the heat, but retain it briefly in an outer suit layer, and let it equilibrate to the mean temperature of the environment before releasing it. You would still be radiating in the infrared, but you would be nearly indistinguishable from your background.

Bob

Re:Invisibility? Huh?

[jhaberman]

It was a show on Discovery... they gave the example of a group of criminals baracaded in a farm house. The law-enforcement had this type of optical cammo... they also had the same sort of thing on a armored vehicle. They said it made things look like a late afternoon heat mirage. It was very cool.

They also had some other techs like portable EMP, sticky foam, etc. At least that was where I saw this sort of stuff.

Jason

Re:Invisibility? Huh?

[overunderunderdone]

Hence, a suit could appear sandy-yellow when in the desert, white when in the desert, and camoflouge when in the jungle... it is unclear whether there is any real advantage to this concept, especially given the cost.

Even that would have value, as it is now you are in the cammo appropriate for your region/season but it's pretty rare to have an environment that is uniformly just one color. Your light tan desert cammo sticks out like a sore thumb if the rocks you are hiding among are dark brown. Even if it just has the ability to sample some of the colors in your immediate environment and match them in your cammo pattern it would help.

I'd imagine they are probably trying to do even better - more like the part of your torso resting on the rock is dark brown but your legs on the sand are tan - this isn't invisibility but it would be really effective cammoflage.

As for cost, I doubt this is being developed for the average grunt but for snipers and special forces.

Re:Invisibility? Huh?

[Random Walk]

The peak wavelenght of thermal radiation depends on the temperature of the radiating object (Planck's law on blackbody radiation). So, while it is clearly necessary to get rid of the excess heat generated by the human body, it should be possible to do this in a different wavelenght range (e.g. build a thermos outfit, collect the body heat with a cooling system, and radiate away in the ultraviolet rather than in the IR). It should also be possible to radiate away the heat in a suitably directed narrow beam, rather than uniformly.

On the other hand, using convection would not help at all (the heated air would radiate in the IR just like the human body does).

Re:Invisibility? Huh?

[jafac]

In Traveller, the IR Sig suit would absorb IR, but you had to replace a disposable "chill can" every couple of hours. . . I think that was at Tech Level 10, don't know if they souped it up for TL 15. T

Re:Invisibility? Huh?

[Random Walk]

The fatal flaw is that you can't stick all your heat into something small without using a lot of extra energy.

How is that a fatal flaw ? It is (well, at least should be) pretty obvious that you need some extra energy to power an active system that gets you rid of the IR emission. But I agree that BB emission is suboptimal - radiating away the energy in a narrow wavelength range would be more appropriate.

Your 'high flow rate' for convection would also require substantial energy. Probably it could work, but only if the throughput is so high that rise in air temperature would stay within the normal range of fluctuations. Just spreading out the heat will not help much - as you point out yourself, brightness goes as T^4, so even a small temperature difference creates an easily visible 'cloud' around a person.

Uhh...

[PlaysWithMatches]

The 5 year, $50 million grant also wants to look at bending light around the uniform to create some sort of invisibility.

IANAS (I Am Not A Scientist), so correct me if I'm wrong... But if you're bending light around a person, that means THEY can't see the light either. Right?

If so, this approach would be limited to situations where vision is not necessary, perhaps holding a hidden position until it is time to move out. Or maybe they would use some sort of devices to allow a soldier to "see" things outside the normal human visual spectrum, thus allowing them to see something despite not being able to see the normally visible light.

Just my 2 :)

It wouldn't be their eyes you'd see

[plagioclase]

After all, eyes don't need to reflect light to function, just absorb it.

What you'd end up seeing is two little spots on the back of the soldier's head where there just wasn't enough light bent around.

HAH! A Mental Picture

[Petersko]

We're gonna make soldiers so incredibly expensive that we can't afford very many.

Then we'll send them into battle, whereupon they'll be vastly outnumbered by hoards of people carrying rocks.

Last words? "Ah... now here's a problem we didn't consider..."

Re:HAH! A Mental Picture

[Petersko]

hu-mor:

That which is intended to induce laughter or amusement.

sense of humor:

The ability to...

oh, never mind.

Not even close

[Marx_Mrvelous]

This won't come close to working. Think about it... pick a spot on your sphere. If you try to look at a point in a straight line through the center of the sphere, you would see the same thing. Now walk about 45degrees around the sphere and look at the same spot. You'll be seeing the "image" from "behind" the old position, not the new one. This is the problem I'm talkign about.

Blending in

[sharkey]

Light-deflecting material could make the suit blend in with surroundings.

"You see anyone?"
"Nope. All I see is that big, large-breasted-female shaped mirror."
"Me neither. Want to go get a beer?"
"Dude!"

OFW

[Telemakhos]

This is part of the Objective Force Warrior Program. From that page: ""The Objective Force Warrior will be a Formidable Warrior in an Invincible Team, Able to See First, Understand First, Act First, and Finish Decisively." Despite the capitalization, diction, and picture, which remind one more of a video game than a project of the federal government, the page is for real and provides some interesting reading. See also The Natick Soldier Center, which hosts the OFW program.

Still better than Canada

[wrinkledshirt]

We've sent our soldiers into Afghanistan with camouflage uniforms. Great idea, right?

They're GREEN camouflage uniforms.

Just you wait. When we decide WE want anime-based uniforms you'll be seeing a bunch of Canucks running around at super-slow speeds with blue streaks blazing behind them to let the enemy know right where to shoot.

Anime based == Ghost in the shell

[ACK!!]

Ghost in the Shell had the characters basically wearing a suit that made the wearer invisible. The drawing from the story looks like a straight up rip off of the art concept used by said anime.

However, who ever submitted the story could have made that clearer.

Still does not mean that a dozen jokes would not have come out of the comparison. I am not sure this will happen though considering how cheap a body is next to the cost of a plane or a tank but we can hope. The American military putting its soldier's first? I hope so.

________________________________________________ __

Knock, knock, knock!

[switcha]

I saw some recent footage of a new integrated networking system for mobile soldiers. All these soldiers are checking their PDAs and typing into their wristpad.

The real problem being when they are sneaking stealthily by the enemy and someone's AIM Buddy Alert goes off.

Re:Bending light?

[hattig]

The light bending will be done by the armor incorporating giant glass prisms on all sides. Liht entering from any angle will be bounced around the soldier, miraculously exiting at the exact opposite side in the correct direction. Being Prism based, some portion of the light can be split off so that the soldier can still see, albeit it dark.

These prisms are expected to weight 1 tonne each, hence the powered armor for the soldier so they can carry them. Also, guns are a problem because you have to exit the prism unit before you can fight - miraculously become visible behind the evil dictator before you shoot him.

Where is my $50mil?

I'm surprised this isnt classified

[HanzoSan]

Ever since bush got into office, all of the classified parts of the military seems to get revealed, now our stealth armor is being revealed

no its not new, nano technology is new. Nano technology works in labs, no ones made products out of them, this suit can be made, but not for $50 million. I think more like $500 million, due to the fact that theres no way create vast amounts of nano bots.

Prototypes I'm guessing, already exsist, thats why the military is willing to pay, but will this be cheap? hell no.

I'd think this technology would be very useful, not just for military but also for law enforcement.

Re:I'm surprised this isnt classified

[bryan1945]

Ah, saying that we are going to have MIT work on nano and "light bending" does not a secret make. Everyone knows what radio freqs the armed forces use, but that is not the secret, either. It's the implementation, the manufacturing process, the real "how does it work" stuff, not general ideas.

I occasionally get to work around classified stuff, and just the stuff I overhear is pretty funky. Just wish my security clearence would come through!

Re:I'm surprised this isnt classified

[HanzoSan]

I said a prototype in a lab at MIT is already made.

Scientists who make it for fun, are not the same as making it and selling it.

Of course theres a prototype, thats what scientists do, but scientists are MIT wont be the guys who mass produce these suits, some factory with guys who arent working for free (like they do in college) will be making it.

Each stealth bomber costs around a billion dollars, this stuff is very expensive, and the more state of the art the technology is, the less units exsist.

Prototypes arent the final product, a prototype can be made for cheap, hell you can make a nano computer prototype for hundreds of thousands maybe a million tops, but try making an actual product out of it.

They are doing research? well duh, but research is done so they can create products. When this research is finished whats it going to solve? Nothing because we wont be able to afford to build the products. Bush is not going to raise taxes so wheres the money going to come from to actually use what we do make?

Re:I'm surprised this isnt classified

[HanzoSan]

Ive heard about stuff too, such as government having anti gravity, and so on, but even if we did have all this stuff thats secret and really advanced, the cost to actually produce it would be so expensive that it wouldnt be used for 20 years.

Stealth bombers were made in the 70s. We are using them now because now its finally cheap enough. I'm sure we have anti gravity aircraft prototypes, current physics and lab experiments say its possible, I'm sure we have prototypes for teleportation becauise quantum entanglement experiments say its easily possible. I'm sure we have unmmanned crafts which use teleportation abilities, or we have attempted it, I know this because its scientific fact that we can teleport things, its scientific fact that we can do anti gravity. I'm sure our government and scientists at places like MIT have done experiments and created prototypes.

Prototypes are one thing, We may have prototypes which are way advanced and shocking, but in order to mass produce this and make it an actual product, it would cost hundreds of billions of dollars.

A stealth bomber costs around a billion each, thats 1970s technology, considering Bush is lowering taxes, I dont see us becoming more high tech unless we raised taxes.

Heres what we could do if we wanted, if we wanted we could make nano technology products right now, the armor could be made, invisibility doesnt seem too difficult either, neither does anything that can be done in a lab.

The reasonn its classified is, until we can mass produce it for cheap, it would be foolish to reveal it to anyone.Once we mass produce it, we unclassify it. The stuff thats classified would be too expensive or too dangerous to reveal.

Teleportation I'm 100 percent sure exsists because its been done in labs by universities and scientists, I'm not sure if our government has tried to make weapons out of fit, but its easy to see how you could use teleporting (if you managed to master it) to teleport aircrafts instead of flying.

How much do i think it would cost to make a military grade aircraft and not a prototype that can use quantum entanglement to teleport, thats if we can teleport things of such great size perfectly, I'm guessinng it would cost maybe 50 billion per craft.

Theres no way to make such a without tons of scientists, theres no way to automate the process,
It could be useful to be able to push a button and have an unnmanned spy craft vanish and appear at your base, but the price of it isnt worth it.

I'm betting we'd try for invisiblee crafts simply because its cheaper not because the technology doesnt exsist.

Price is the issue. Maybe you do work on classified stuff, Ive heard of some stuff too, however even if you did work on classified stuff, it doesnt change the fact that just because technology exsists in lab, or prototype form, doesnt mean its cheap enouggh to mass produce.

Re:I'm surprised this isnt classified

[HanzoSan]

Well most of the top secret stuff i dont even think our president knows about. Its either too high tech to properly explain, or they wont explain it to him until they recommend that he needs to use it.

And you are right the top secret stuff not many people know about, if it leaks and I'm sure it has leaked, they just lie and say it doesnt exsist or its not them. Really until they make a product out of it, technically, it doesnt exsist so they arent lying, but it does exsist in the fact that its being developed.

As far as freaking out our enemies, our enemies know more of what we have, than you and I know, so i really doubt thats the case, theres spies, theres satelites all over, theres no way anyone can test anything without our enemies knowing, or even us knowing, people may see tests and not know what the hell it is so they ignore it, and our enemies may see it and may even have the papers on it.

Really, top secret stuff is obsure security, its hiding the details to such an extent that all people have is the peices.

I have enough peices and knowledge, to guess what could be developed. We have tests in labs being done by scientists, and lots of theories, and prototypes for lots of things, and because its in public places like MIT, i know alot about it. What i dont know is how our government will use it, what ideas they have to make use of it for military purposes.

I do know we have nano dust spy technology, I also know our governments newest crafts are unmanned, I know we have crafts which work like bees, unmanned crafts which are small and swarm enemies with guns and so on, but i dont really know much more than a person can find out by keeping up with science, and looking at what the military is revealing by mistake, or on purpose.

Theres the chance that they reveal alot of stuff they arent developing to confuse the enemy disinformation, but i know for a fact technoloogy wise it can be developed.

We have the specs and the technology to build a warp drive, the problem is, while on paper we can describe exactly how to build it, we dont have the power of a star (planck energy) required to build such a device.

So theres alot of issues. Perhaps our government could have discovered a new form of energy, but i really doubt that, alot of technologies cant exsist due to the amount of energy required.
Alot of technologies cant exsist due to being way to expensive to be useful in an actual war. Alot of technologies if not most of them never actually get used, because they are just too exotic, technologies get used when they are required, we arent going to use high tech urban warfare weaponry until we get into a high tech urban war.
So why would we need to use nano dust against some guys hiding in caves in afganastan or some guys in the desert? If it were Japan, then perhaps we would be warring with them using nano technology so on because japan has technology to fight us back with.

Re:More weapons of destruction?

[Marx_Mrvelous]

We need better ways to kill. Things get worse before they get better, hehe. It'd be nice if the world were that simple, but it's not.

Non-military applications

[DragonPup]

As I said when I submitted this 5 hours ago(no I'm not bitter:-) ), is that this technology has potential for very good non-military uses. The enchancing of strength could help people with Muscular Schirrosis move around more freely, or help people who've had a leg smashed by a car or something walk again. Lots of fuzzy warm stuff could result from the development project that can benefit humanity(as well as letting otakus live out anime dreams of a exosuit).

-Henry

Re:Bending light?

[Zathrus]

The issue is that you emit infrared energy constantly. About the only way to be "invisible" would be to have the ambiant air be the same temperature as you. Good luck.

Even after that you're going to leave tracks - either hotter or colder than the ground - which can be a pretty big giveaway.

Realistically, the idea here isn't to become perfectly invisible. It's to reduce visibility to opponents. If you refract enough of the light around you so that your enemy can't see you before you're in firing range, then the fact that he can see you when you get 100 meters away is pretty irrelevant. By the time you're 100 meters away, he's dead.

What's the difference between... (joke)

[HEbGb]

What's the difference between an MIT mechanical engineer and and MIT civil engineer?

.
.
.
.

Mechanical engineers build weapons, and civil engineers build targets.

Ha!

Re:What's the difference between... (joke)

[Malcontent]

Ah so true. The best and the brightest of our nation being put to work on killing people.

Once more with the militarism

[The Ape With No Name]

The Slashdot Maxim:

Any story about killing is cool as long as it involves high-tech gadgetry, which will let /.ers playout their Fantasy/SciFi desires or, at least, let them think they can.

Oh my god!!!

[Dirtside]

The military is going to hire Cobra Commander!

Re: 5-year MIT program

[nEoN nOoDlE]

Put me down for $100 on MIT for the 2007 NCAA torney.

or the Darwin Awards...

Truth following fiction?

[overunderunderdone]

I was watching Predator on AMC and they had some interviews and how-they-did-the-FX stuff during commercial breaks. Somebody (the director? can't remember) mentioned that they had a screening for some military guys and a general came up to him after the film and said he "WANTED that!" (speaking of the predators armor). - I guess he had the pull to actually fund his movie inspired techno-lust.

I can see it now

[BluedemonX]

ENGINEERING MANAGER: "Ok, the suit resists bullets, mortar fire, acid, cold, heat, biological weaponry, nerve gas and electrical discharge. On to the final test."

ENGINEER: "Ok, boss."

(Female soldier steps forward. Her eyes are particularly large. Her hair is a strange lemon yellow color)

ENGINEERING MANAGER: "Release the tentacles!"

ENGINEER: "Yes, sir!"

(Tentacles emerge from the ground. The suit rips into fifty million pieces, each one strangely hovering in mid-air)

The ENGINEERING MANAGER starts slamming his fist against the desk.

ENGINEERING MANAGER: "Back to the drawing board. Private. Go rescue the recruit."

ENGINEER: (agog, ducking various flying fluids) "With all due respect, you first, sir."

Re:Not quite.

[joib]

No need to be a black hole. Boot camp just has to be modified to include chugging more big macs and beer than you ever thought possible. After boot camp every soldier has a massive beer belly doubling as a gravitional lens.

This is the end result of "Body Count Syndrome'

[EvilBastard]

It's gotten now so that the US Public and US News media simply find it amazing that US Soldiers can get hurt and die in a war.

So, the USArmy have to react to this by making their soldiers much tougher and less likely to be hurt. Thus you are sending soldiers out in $5 to $10 million dollar armour (by the time development costs are factored in) to fight against people armed with $2000 rifles and street clothes

The danger is that you end up flipping right over to the material-cost issue. Remember the insane news reports when a Stealth Fighter was shot down ? Combine that with body-count-syndrome and you'll end up with :

"3 Soldiers were killed today in an ambush in Tasmania today, and a further 4 were injured by cybothylacines. A total of 14 PBA-4C's were damaged or destroyed, with a total cost of over 100 million dollars added to the death toll"

"President Winona Ryder rejected claims that the Tasmanian Uprising was a waste of cash, pointing out that the New Zealand invasion had to be stopped at all costs"

What about the dilithium, captain?

[pjt48108]

Unfortunately, with the new inviso-suit you have to de-cloak in order to fire your weapon, so there are still a few kinks to be worked out.

Oh, and does it run Linux?

Why people first?

[JPriest]

Why not first use the technology as a replacement for camo paint. I am sure the nanotransisters themselves may not weigh that much but my guess would be that the entire getup would be heavy and probably does not disperse body heat well. It would however be useful as a cover for army tanks and the likes due to the many color terrains/roads etc. and the over all difficulty of frequently changing the color.

The 5-Step Way to New Combat Comfort and Security

[paul.dunne]

Seems to me as though the powers that be in the US Army should read
more of the right kind of sci-fi: Frederick Pohl's "The Wizards
of Pungs Corners" would do for a start. Sorry, can't find it on
the net. Originally published 1959; you'll find it in Penguin's
"Connoisseur's SF" anthology, and doubtless other collections.
(Please God, let it be that at least one other reader of slashdot
knows what the fuck I'm talking about...)

As long as they don't fly.

[HamNRye]

Soon, none of our GI's will be able to board a commercial aircraft.... *SIGH*

What does this have to do with anime?

[BlackGriffen]

This sounds more like a general Sci-fi thing.

BlackGriffen

Re:Breaking news: 9/11 The US military was involve

[HanzoSan]

I dont think it was a conpsircy, I do think the government is taking advantage of the situation for their own benifit.That was the mistake, sure they should raise the budget for war, but how are they doing this while aoso having tax cuts? Theres no logic in that, wheres the money comingg from? Social Security, HealthCare, etc?

If Bush were to call off his tax cut and just raise the military budget people wouldnt be crying conpiricy, but because Bush is getting everything he wants, it seems as if he planned the whole thing.

I think the Tax cut was a bad idea, back then people werent sure it was a bad idea, now we need to raise the budget for all these things and theres no money to do it with, so now we are going to be back in debt because of the tax cuts, or bush will take money from social security, its a lose lose situation.

We are at War, what I'd do is temperarly raise taxes for the period of a year, forget about the tax cut for a few years, make the military more modern by using the new surplus on the military, security and not just in airports but all highly popululated areas.

People however were so worried about saving a buck or two (litterally thats how much you save unless you are a millionare) that we got caught off guard and had to suffer through a recession, and now we are in debt and have budget problems, Bush keeps sending more money for all of these things with no taxes to actually pay for it, how can you cut taxes yet keep giving more money? Our surplus is gone due to the taxcut and 911 combo.

People believe it was planned because of the timing, as soon as the tax cut goes through, we are attacked when our guard is down the most.

I dont think Bush planned it, simply because i dont think hes smart enough to do it, not because i think he wouldnt do it.

I believe we were attacked, I believe bush was stupid and didnt have any defenses for an attack. Now we know we are under attack and hes still cutting taxes, I'm thinking WTF?! I'd cancel the whole trillion dollar tax cut because that trillion dollars is desperately needed now more than ever.

Re:Breaking news: 9/11 The US military was involve

[ahde]

France, meaning those in France who are quoted by American media, is such a parrot of certain leftist American policies that it isn't even funny.

Well, it is funny. It's like watching a mobster movie where the boss is trying to come up with an eloquent euphamism for something and the stupid henchman blurts out what the boss is reluctant to say in so many words.

But the funny part is how these French think they are so anti-American and original thinking and defiant, when their opinions are created and branded in the salons of the good ole U. S. of A.

I'm not speaking of this particular notion of the Bush conspiracy -- which was indeed whispered here long before it occurred to anyone in the MidEast (transmitted via satellite as "speculation" of what they were "going to" think) -- but of european and particularly French anti-American policy in general.

Look at how Bush reacts

[HanzoSan]

His reactions while they seem positive, does not take into account that tax cuts are only going to hurt us.

I agree tax cuts can help revive an economy after a recession, but they should be temperary, taxes should be raised when the economy is strong, lowered when the economy is in recession.

The trillion dollar tax cut hurts us in the long run , because of the lack of the republicans to properly manage a budget.

Alot of people didnt like clinton, but we had a surplus which is now gone. That surplus could have been used to pay for 911 and the war on terrorism, etc.

Right now we have no surplus due to the tax cut, so wheres the money being used for the war on terrorism coming from? Social Security? HealthCare? or are we just overbudget and in debt again?

Tax cuts can be good at certain times, and the timing has to bee precise, such as during a recession. But in times of war i'd think a tax cut is the dumbest move possible, how do you pay for the war with less taxes?

Re:Look at how Bush reacts

[thelizman]

It's nice to see how readily brainwashed some people.

Taxes ALWAYS hurt economic growth. It makes no sense to retard a period of growth only to back off at the slightest sign of recession, especially in a free market economy. Just look at how drastic the stock market rollercoasters on the RUMOR of the fed increasing or decreasing the prime rate a quarter of a percent or so.

As to the surplus, THERE NEVER WAS A SURPLUS! It was a SHAM, a PROJECTION based on BEST CASE SCENARIOS over a number of years! Those projections ignored periodic cycles, and did'nt take into account such things as revenue lost due to the recession, then the subsequent expenditures necessitated by 9/11. The only assumed a steady rate of economic growth. It's like me assuming that my paycheck will increase x% over the next five years, while my expenses will increase at a slightly lower rate, in which case I can have x amount of dollars to spend on new stuff. This is also known as piss poor financial planning.

And finally, for all of you mind numbed robots who think the federal government is your daddy, SURPLUSSES ARE A BAD THING! A surplus means the government took more of your money then they needed to do the job, and worse, they are now planning on finding new ways to spend that money. Any surplus should be given back to the people from which it was confiscated to begin with. You want to talk about economic growth? The $280 I got helped me make my rent, buy a new microwave (life sucks without a popcorn button and a carousel), and avoid bouncing a check or two. That both kept me from going in the hole (aka negative personal economic growth), made my life easier (ie. greater personal production capacity), and also helped the north american division of some Taiwanese company get a little bit richer and hire a couple more people to make microwaves or toasters.

Re:Look at how Bush reacts

[Don Negro]

Surpluses are a good thing if you have an enourmous debt to service, allowing you to retire it sooner, saving taxpayer money over the long haul.

Of course, you have to ask who we're paying this interest to. There are two main buyers of U.S. Treasury issues - Japanese banks, and various classes of American enterprise. Of course, the Americans get taxed on the interest, so some of it comes back. However, if you cut taxes at the same time you increase your debt, your borrowing has the incidental effect of being a wealth-transfer mechanism from the people who pay the taxes to the people who buy the bonds. Most economists will agree that in our case, the flow is from the whole of the taxpayers to the rich taxpayers. Whether this is a good thing or not depends on which economic theories you subscribe to, but that's what happens.

Re:Look at how Bush reacts

[ahde]

Maybe you don't remember clinton shutting down the government because he was unwilling to balance the budget, but being stalemated by the Republican congress?

I'm not going to say Bush is smart, or that his reactions are positive. Reaction is the best word for it. The poster who replied to you is wrong about taxes only hurting the economy, but the only exception is the case of paying off the debt. Of course "government debt" is an arbitrary term, and it could be wiped out the same way Hilter wiped out Germany's war reparation debt, or any of a number of other ways-- decree, bankruptcy, etc.

The "surplus" though was a "projected, future surplus" -- and it didn't have anything to do with social security. At all.

While the government getting out of debt would be good for the government's budget, I'm not the one that got them there, and I'm increasingly disinclined to feel I have any responsibility towards the government, since my ability to participate is so minimal. My share of the debt (per capita) is only around 20,000 anyway, and I've already paid it.

$5,000,000,000,000
------------------
250,000,000 people

Geneva Convention?

[Alsee]

The Geneva Convention requires that lawful combatants must wear a uniform or visible insignia and carry their weapons openly.

I believe invisibility clearly (pardon the pun) violates both points.

-

Re:Geneva Convention?

[thelizman]

Nowhere in the geneva convention does it say that they have to expose themselves or their insignia. Otherwise, hiding behind trees would be a violation of the Geneva convention.

Geneva Convention...what a fucking joke...

Re:Invisible to light not heat... Just wear therma

[Moonshadow]

So put some sort of cooling system in the suit - lower the external temp to <= atmosphere/ground temp, and you're invisible on the thermal spectrum, too.

Two words - "Special Forces"

[No Such Agency]

Considering the likely level of sophistication of battlefield robotics in the next few decades (ie. ROV tanks and other vehicles, small recon buggies etc.), there will still be a need for specialized and "discreet" soldiers like the Green Berets & SEALs. These are after all, men (so far, men) who are more deadly with only a kabar knife and a loincloth than most people would be with a rocket launcher, and are trained to penetrate far behind enemy lines. Automate *that*! Even the "Terminators" lacked... any subtlety whatsoever :-)

Also in the picture...

[No Such Agency]

There's an A10 Warthog in the background, but the other flying vehicle appears to be an "Orca" VTOL from "Command & Conquer". I suspect somebody's been taking extended breaks in the lab...

Yeah sacrafice your life for the economy?

[HanzoSan]

The economy isnt more important than security!
What about retirement? stability? Taxes are for stability, security, etc. Its like a backbone.

IF I am brainwashed into thinking taxes help th economy (which i never stated but you assume)

Then you are brained by thinking its always a good idea to lower taxes.

If we had no taxes, we'd have no public school.
no law enforcement, no way to control the people, we'd have complete anarchy.

Taxes are needed to maintain stability and security, when stability and security are threatened taxes should be raised, when people prove they can handle the responsbility of having lower taxes then you lower them.

This is my opinion. I mean if we didnt have crime we wouldnt need police and if we werent attacked by terrorists we wouldnt need homeland security.

This money has to come from somewhere right?

Re:Yeah sacrafice your life for the economy?

[HanzoSan]

Not everyone makes enough money to save ANYTHING..
Cant you figure it out? In fact, most people are strapped with bills and cant save for their retirement, wife, kids, house, car,

You are saying only single guys who live in apartments can retire because they are the only ones who have the extra income.

Not everyone is rich and can save, some people save for their kids college, others cant save a dime paying for house, and some people live paycheck to paycheck.

Considering people who are poor outnumber you, then all of us schmucks who cant afford to save for our retirement and for our kids college education, well, we are screwed.

Oh and defending the country costs money, and this money comes from taxes. The Economy is plenty strong, having an stronger economy will make the rich richer but if the richer rich pay less taxes than the defense budget you talk about wont benifit.

Re:Yeah sacrafice your life for the economy?

[ahde]

if you put $3000 a year (the amount I paid in social security this year at $40,000) into a savings account for 40 years, you'll have three hells and a handshake more money in the bank at age 60 than you'll get from social security.

You don't have a right to retire on the government. And if you do, even as it is, you'll live in poverty.

Re:Yeah sacrafice your life for the economy?

[ahde]

A weak enonomy makes the rich richer. The relative value of a dollar goes up. Not to mention, they get to take back everything that the poor were buying (houses, cars, etc) on credit when then can't make the payments (after having already paid for it twice over in interest). Not to mention, the ability to buy power is easier for the "haves" compared to the "have nots" vs the "have a little bits"

Re:Yeah sacrafice your life for the economy?

[HanzoSan]

So how can people say Reagan helped the economy? The rich are getting richer, look at bill gates, and other billionares.

The stronger the economy the richer that rich people get because while sure they may hire more people, they hire them for as cheap as possible the wage barely moves for the average worker, its the executive that benifits the most.

Until we have a fair economy, making the economy only helps in in the sense that it creates more jobs, of course creating more jobs does not mean higher wages, it means more low paying jobs and more cash for big companies.

Re:Yeah sacrafice your life for the economy?

[HanzoSan]

wow thats a selfish self centered way of thinking
yeah let all the poor people die and suffer, just worry about myself, to hell with everyone else.

Thats your way of thinking. While life isnt fair, that doesnt mean life SHOULDNT be fair.

Life should be as fair as possible while still giving people individual freedom.

Thats why we have minimum wage.

Not everyone can be rich. Yes there is a caste system, people who are rich are born into it. People who have rich family members, or say the kennedy family, are like royalty.

People ARE defined by their race and or gender, not so much their last name. Either way dont act like everyone is starting out on the same level because thats BS, people are born into upper class alot of the time.

You say all poor people are uneducated, thats BS, you can be educated as hell, with a degree, and dropout bill gates is still making more money than you.

Being rich has nothing to do with education at all, its more to do with timing, luck, who you know, etc.

So you are saying my options are, be rich and selfish, or be poor and unselfish, I think I'd be happy being middle class and having social security, than being rich when i know that I 'm only rich because I stepped over all these other people, and how can a person whos rich sleep at night in their mansion when they know all these people who may work for them are barely surviving?

Rich people should pay taxes, and they should pay most of the taxes because they have most of the money, they take the money from the poor, or the have nots who do all of the hard work (being a CEO is not as hard as being a programmer, or construction worker, even a scientist)

You see the problem is, people dont get paid based on how hard they work.

Capitalism isnt even close to being fair and in order for people to not complain and ask for the government to help, Capitalism has to be 100 percent fair. By fair it means everyone has equal chances of starting a successful company, when you have big monopoly companies it HARMS the Capitalist economy because less companies can be started.

Putting 90 percent of the US money into the hands of the top 1% (bill gates having 70 billion etc) is not as good as spreading that money out so everyone can start their own businesses. More businesses = more innovation.

I'm saying the money should be spread out, when you have people who are so rich they cant spend their money in their lifetime.

Sorry but i dont agree with any one group of people dominating over anyone else.

You tell me to stop complaining and take whats mine, you just dont get it, not everyone can spend their life taking and i certainly disagree with someone like bill gates whos done nothing all their life but take from other people, yes they should pay most of the taxes.

You are saying, Survival of the fittest, anyone whos unfit can die.

I dont agree with Survival of the fittest I believe in Survival of all, that includes the rich and the poor.

The rich who happen to run the country along with the benifits of being rich, they should also have increased responsbility, meaning higher taxes.

It makes no sense to tax a person who cant even afford to pay their bills then theres a guy living in a mansion with more money than he can spend.

I guess we have very diffrent life philosophies.

Its ok you can believe what you want. You can call me pathetic and say that I'm whining all you want, If i ever do end up rich, I plan to donate alot of my money from my own free will, I donate now and I'm poor as hell.

Its a shame rich people also happen to be the most greedy, but i guess thats why they are rich.

Why should we protect the rich from taxes?

[HanzoSan]

They are rich damnit, why do i care if they cant buy a new mansion or another car for their collection of hundreds?

Please!

Rich people pay most of the taxes because they make most of the money, that is fair.

Everyone should pay a percentage of taxes based on how much they make, the poor deserve tax breaks because most people are poor, the majority should overrule the top 1 percent.

Most people NEED social security, healthcare, public schools etc because MOST people arent rich.
Why do the rich need to save money on taxes? So they can waste their money on junk they dont even need? While some poor person cant retire anymore and cant get free health care or decent schooling because of it?

The rich SHOULD pay most of the taxes because the poor are the workers of society who allow the rich to be rich in the first place.

Regean did horrible, socalism? Socialism is not a bad thing, theres benifits to Socialism, in fact if technology keeps going the way its going, Capitalism leads to Socialism and theres no way around it really.

The Regean Economic boom or whatever crap you talk about, helps the top 10 percent of business execs, and people who are already rich, the tax cuts help people who are already rich, so having a good economy = helping the rich? What about the working class? I'm not rich, most people arent rich, how do we benifit by these tax cuts when we only get a few hundred bucks, big fucking deal!

I'm not saying tax cuts are bad, I'd take a few hundred bucks extra any day, but when tax cuts happen when we dont even have the surplus for a tax cut anymore, i think its stupid.

So we are having the war on terrorism.
Homeland Security is created (wheres this money going to come from?)

Raised Military Budget (wheres this money coming from?)

Increaded R&D for Nano Technology (where is this money coming from?)

Increased Budget for schools (where do they find free money?)

Bailout for Airport companies (why the hell are we paying for this?!)

If you are so pro capitalist, dont you agree we should have proper budget management?

The president and you, seem to think we can pull money out of our asses without taxing anyone, but newsflash, we dont have enough money to pay for all of this, and perhaps if we DIDNT have tax cuts we would have been able to pay for it easier.

I'm not saying keep taxes raised for the sake of keeping it raised, and I'm not saying its bad to lower taxes in a recession, What I am saying is, when theres a Surplus, lower taxes, use the Surplus money to pay for all of the emergency expenses, war, defense, and security.

When theres no surplus there should be no tax cut.I mean if we cut taxes while trying to fund a war with money we dont have, this money is coming from lets see the Education Budget, Social Security, HealthCare, etc etc that benifit the poor and middle class MAJORITY.

So its taking from the Majority who need these benifits, to pay for the war on terror? Why should we do that when we can just raise taxes and let rich guys likee Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and others pay for it? Why should someone not be able to retire, or get medicine over unpredictable events?

Taxes are for Security,

In a world with absolutely no taxes at all, meaning a pure capitalist anti socialist world that you want.

Theres no law enforcement, Hire your own personal body guard or get killed by criminals.

Theres no public school, either you can afford your education or you cant.

Theres no free hospital care, either you pay for it or you die.

Theres no social security, either you have a nest egg and stock, or you dont retire period.

Dont even think about buying a house either unless you can pay in cash.

Oh and the terrorist attacks? Rich individualist capitalist types likee you would only defend yourself, your own home using your money to do so, while the people with less money would have less defense and be victims of terrorist attacks.

Alot of people think socialism is wrong, but its required so that capitalism can work, absolute capitalism is a mistake, absolute socialism perhaps is also a mistake.

People must have some individuality, but sometimes people must work as a team for the greater good of the country, humanity, etc.

Capitalism is Individualism and thats a big problem when the Individuals arent very mature, dont forget its harder to enforce a democracy as well if you can even have one in an absolute Capitalist society.

Re:Why should we protect the rich from taxes?

[jafac]

How about a shorter example:

The rich SHOULD pay more taxes, because we need to buy all these tanks and planes and guns to protect THEIR way of life.

If we were invaded by China, the poor in the US would not have substantially different lives. The rich would.

What they actually mean

[HanzoSan]

Using electronics, you can have electronic camaflauge(sp?) which adapts to the enviornment you are in making you seem invisible. Its an illusion, a very very good illusion thats generated electronically, so if you go into the desert your suit will look like desert sand, it wouldnt be hard really, just take a snapshop of the enviornment and then take that snapshot and the suit displays it

or at least thats a very cheap simple way of doing it.

A more complex way would require alot more energy, and electronics. Bending light? thats not what it will do, but it will create the illusion of being invisible

Re:Block a .50 Caliber ya schmuck

[kwishot]

Not that it's particularly relevant, but tanks are being phased out. (m1a1, etc)
Most things in the near future will be Infantry-type groups and planes with bombs.

-kwishot

Re:Look familiar?

[psergiu]

MOD PARENT UP NOW !!!

Click on the link to see from where they got the picture...

Complete and total RIP-OFF ! Hey Pentagon, will you give me 50M$ if I edit some photos in Gimp ?

glowing eyes

[BlueboyX]

Talk about holding fire until you see the lights of their eyes! Soldiers who only can be seen by their eyes, as that is the only spot where the 'light bending' isn't used. Interesting. :P