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Synthetic Vision
oniony writes "Ars Technica has a link to a story on new goggles being developed for/by the military. The new device uses satellite imaging and land profiling to build a 3D representation of the world in a soldier's goggles in real-time. This would enable troops to see through sand storms and oil smoke of the kind currently hampering operations in the Gulf. I imagine one could also remove mountains to allow remote viewing of approaching territory."
Of course, when it fails, as all new technologies occasionally do, we'll end up with something like the American 12 soldiers that ended up taking a wrong turn and falling into the hands of Saddam as POW's.
Even the FAA sees this, as they do not allow it to be the primary navigation system on planes in the US.
Have you been stalked by Seth today?
Remove clothes?
This seems a bit ambitious. From what I understand the holdup in flying in the sandstorms is the fear of hitting electrical lines. Is this tech gonna provide a level of resolution that can show a powerline? No way.
A guide to the war's talking heads
tcd004
Maybe they will be able to apply a wireframe hack and see through walls!!
(or you could just load up CS and frag away)
... the world is in for it..
from the wireframe-world dept:
(taken from a January 2002 SA.com article entitled, How you Know You're in the Future or something...)
Wireframe models. Everything in the future is represented by wireframe models on computers. Everything. If you're looking for a particular person, their face will appear as a wireframe model accompanied by 500-point flashing text displaying their name. If you're looking for a file, it will appear as a wireframe model of a folder. If you're looking for a wireframe model, it will appear as a wireframe model composed of really tiny wireframe models that make up each wire.
This is my sig. Its pathetic.
I imagine one could also remove mountains to allow remote viewing of approaching territory.
I imagine nerds removing walls to allow remote viewing of the girls locker-room.
Is would it be real time enough to show the the enemy soldier standing directly in front of them about to pop a cap in thier ass.
If not, then I believe this would only be of a limited usage.
You say you want a revolution....
"Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?"
How is this different from adding a cheat mod to your FPS client? Transparent textures is one of the oldest tricks in the book. I think that the Geneva conventions need to be updated to prohibit this kind of thing. It just encourages campers.
Do these satellites actually detect small changes such as people and tanks?
Otherwise, why not just use a map and a laptop?
Hey, that would be cheating!
Trolls lurk everywhere. Mod them down.
Wasn't there an article just yesterday about how cheaters were using technology to be able to see through walls? Now they can say it's OK since the military does it in real life.
I don't want that kind of realism in Counterstrike. Now all of the l4m3r5 will consider it justified since real soldiers now have wireframe mountains and buildings.
Now even the military is using wall hacks. What has our world come to?
All this fancy tech stuff is great. But, if you watch the news right now, you'll see that this fancy schmancy stuff isn't terribly helpful when you are burried in a sand strom or up to your hips in mud and bullets are zinging every which way.
There's a time for tech. But, there are always going to be times when nothing will take the place of simple brute force.
Where's my sledge hammer?
"This would enable troops to see through sand storms and oil smoke of the kind currently hampering operations in the Gulf. I imagine one could also remove mountains to allow remote viewing of approaching territory"
Great, first we get wallhackers in Counterstrike, now the military...what's next?
To make a pun demonstrates the highest understanding of a language
Examples:
Driving through a snow storm at night in the middle of nowhere? Overlay location info, along with roadside markings in the goggles so you KNOW where the road is and not drive into a ditch.
Driving from New York to SF for the first time? Can't read a map? Have the goggles map it all out for you connections to GPS for real time roadside updates.
Part of this technology can be used in conjunction with speech-to-text software/hardware to overlay real-time closed captioning so that I know what the damn radio DJ's are saying on my morning commute. At least Satellite radio provides the song info.
These are just some of the possibilities that I can think off the top of my head.
-Cyc
/.'s 10 Millionth
and I'ts been worked on for the past 10 years by Steve Mann.
www.wearcam.org is a good place to start.
He is developing the cyper enhanced reality to specifically remove advertisments from the real world.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
First wireframe walls in quake, now wirefreame mountains in the real world. Is someone going to develop PunkBuster for the real wars?
How are you going to keep them down on the farm once they've seen Karl Hungus?
Did Asus Write the drivers?
Do not read this
(Heard from the enemy in the first combat use of this idea)
KICK! KICK! FUXORING CHEATERS! They are using a "see through walls" hack! KICK THEM!
www.eFax.com are spammers
They need to add tracking system so that we don't shoot are own troops as well. With that incotrporated along with the ideas of wire framing mountains and such to see through them, it could be a useful tool so long as it doesn't end up weighing 40lbs and require a small mini sat-dish to be sticking out of their bung.
Then again, this system could also be a peeping-tom's best friend. No more need to hang from tree's or below window sills. Just act like you are waiting for the bus or cleaning the sidewalk and wow would ya look at that.
Trying to be different, just like everyone else.
but.. they still can't see thru clothing :( What use would I have for them
I've left to find myself. If you happen to see me, please, keep me there until I return.
Why can't they use real-time ultrasound imaging that gives an object imagery and on top overlayed by texture ? Sort of a la "Aliens" when a drop ship on approach to terra-formers colony ?
Just a thought.
I also don't see much of the devlopment phase for this. Aren't real time Satellite images already availible? Isn't an iPaq strong enough to decode/decipher/function for this purpose? And aren't the Olympus EyeTrek Glassessmall enough for such a purpose?
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
The war will still be on when the technology is ready... wow.
http://dtum.livejournal.com
already done
r ica/GMA010807Xray_cameras_hunter.html
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/GMA/GoodMorningAme
Also.. this technology seems very far away since the FAA won't allow planes with synthetic vision to get into worse weather than they currently can... FAA are movers and shakers... when they move on the product then you will see some action.
- what is the definition of simultanagnosia?! I've been meaning to look it up!
Oooh, we finally get a real-life wireframe walls cheat. Now all we need are aiming bots for our soldiers.
- WrexSoul
\/.
vvv
I have confirmed that the Al-Jazeera tape, all twelve minutes of it, is merely an excerpt of the hour-long version being shown regularly in Egypt and elsewhere. The short version shows the interrogation of some U.S. soldiers and the defamed dead bodies of others. The longer version includes all that, plus the murders and later abuse and mutilation of the bodies. Apparently, the whole thing is out there on the internet. I don't want to watch it tonight. Maybe tomorrow morning, when the mind is fresher, more able to withstand it.
"This would enable troops to see through sand storms and oil smoke of the kind currently hampering operations in the Gulf." but will they be able to see through the bullshit-excuses thrown on their faces for going to this war?
Well after it gets military use, it will eventually go mainstream. Will bulky ass VR goggles become the newest peice of geek swag?
-- Insert wisdom here:
n.T.
Dosn't sand shift ?
How realtime would these images be ? Personally Flying low altitude through a world that's 5 hrs old would make me nervous.
Goddamned wall-haxoring bastards!
"This is your world. These are your people. You can live for yourself today, or help build tomorrow for everyone."
But they're ALL offtopic.. I don't give a shit about american propaganda in iraq.. I still think /. editors get a erection when they can report from the frontline.. or something..
some improvements. Looking at those pics on the Ars Technica site only shows a screenshot of a small screen displaying the info in the cockpit. Now what I would like to see is this being implemented in a HUD, possibly with informational lay-overs like restricted flight zones or whatever you can think of that will enhance the info displayed ... I mean, as it's realtime, the system knows exactly where you are, so it can never be difficult to put such a system in somewhere =]
About people saying: " The Real Question is would it be real time enough to show the the enemy soldier standing directly in front of them about to pop a cap in thier ass." Of course not. Does your GPS navigator show you cars in front of you? Maybe it does, but it's not cause the GPS can actually see the car. That's a completely different system altogether ....
Veni, Vidi, Velcro!
The Wired article references in one place NIMA's (The National Imagery and Mapping Agency) recent SRTM (Shuttle Radar Topography Mission) a pretty amazing feat (according to my father, who works for NIMA) which managed to take data to get a topographic map of most of the world in an amazingly short time. When this data is finally processed (I heard estimates of 2 years when it was taken), it should be extremely useful, but I'm not sure the resolution is sufficient for this kind of task. The factsheet (factsheet) says data will be at 30 meter resolution for most of the globe, which, though good, I can't expect is good enough in itself to fly a plane with.
Perhaps the dependence on GPS and other data makes it viable?
"though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing"
This technology could be used for humanitarian purposes too, like staying oriented while fighting wildfires.
... from wireframe quake cheaters ?
Can you see the bullet running on YOU while you're seeing the world through your goggles ?
This could open up a whole new level of dorm panty raids.
-- www.globaltics.net
Political discussion for a new world
Some thoughts on this:
You start preceiving the world second hand, as if in a video game. This could make it easier for people to treat other people/things as they do in a video game.
You follow orders and destroy the enemy, but is the enemy your destroying really the enemy you see? The local military command could easily get soldier to attack something they would not normally by making the soldiers display show an enemy. The soldier will be trained to believe the display and not think, for soldiers are trained to follow orders, not question them. So that hospital showed up as a command bunker?
You could just filter out an individual or an unpleasent sight. Replace it with something more pleasent.
Saddam just installed Punkbuster.. all US forces were booted
The Apple iPod is a good example.
Untested waters for Apple, Apple not "well received" by entire PC population, different, semi-unpopular connection scheme, new type of hard drive never released on mass consumer scale- low profit margin market - what else could have been more unproven about the iPod? It has become one of the most critically acclaimed gadgets of the past two years and is made to a very high quality (typical Apple, but always exceptions) standard.
Your analogy would earn you a low SAT and fits in with my signature, read below :)
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
KICK 'EM BAN 'EM!!! THEY BE CHEATING!!!
/. here and here.
Damn wireframe cheaters!!!
As seen on
This post was generated by a Team of Elite Monkeys for br0ken2o0o (569914).
Perhaps the goggles could make the combatants appear as Cacodemons from Doom, instead of the underage soldiers fighting with 1950s technology that they are.
Come to think of it, isn't America at war like playing Doom with god mode enabled?
Linux : Mac
this can't be the same technology as beer goggles. :^)
when i'm wearing beer goggles all i see is deceptively appealing mountinous breasts
everything is not perfect spheres
Another instance would be if something changes, for example, a bridge washes out in a blinding, hail filled rain storm and flood. I realize that these are extreme conditions, but this technology in its given state would only create a false sense of security IMO.
I live to gib...
Bill Gates has outlined Microsoft's plan for global domination of the synthetic vision market.
oniony writes "Ars Technica has a link to a story on new goggles being developed for/by the military. The new device uses satellite imaging and land profiling to build a 3D representation of the world in a soldier's goggles in real-time. This would enable troops to see through sand storms and oil smoke of the kind currently hampering operations in the Gulf. I imagine one could also remove mountains to allow remote viewing of approaching territory."
Now if they make it so the soldiers see a wireframe world, will that mean that US troops will get kicked off battelfield servers for cheating?
GF
Lots of petrified grits
IMHO, I think that gets classified under the same category as wall hacking in Counterstrike. DOn't you just hate the guys without handicaps? (Being on the Recieving End :S)
SmakT -- Ain't Nothin But SmakTalK
This system seems to work by using high resolution topographic maps of an area and overlaying high satilate images or arial photos on over topo like rendering over a wireframe model. GPS is used to determine the observers position with relation to the landscape and the images rendered from that view point.
This something like making a fly by movie of an area in a GIS, which the GRASS GIS package will allow you to do (not in real time if the resolution is any way high) with the NVIZ 3-D GRASS Interface .
Independence? That's middle-class blasphemy. We are all dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth. G.B Shaw
Remote activation of a HUD on someone else's car:
"GET OFF THE PHONE YOU FREAKING IDIOT!!"
Actually, power lines are extremely simple to identify in a satellite image by looking for power poles.
Can't the military use the same google searches that the rest of us use?
my other contact lenses are beer googles
Dammit! Cheap wall hacks ruin the war for the rest of us!
The downside to adding this to cars is that stupid people will think:
"Hey, I kin see jus' fine, so's I'll drive jus' lik it were daytime, and"
WHOOMP - as they plow into the cow the system didn't know about.
There's more to driving than knowing where the road is, there's also knowing whats ON the road.
www.eFax.com are spammers
The army has finally developed it's first wallhack. Now all they need is an aimbot and those n00bs they play against won't stand a chance :)
Yer with us or against us (The good graces of the Lord included,Sir.)
Hint: Don't go against us.
What you're describing usually goes by the name of augmented reality (as opposed to virtual reality). Here is a webpage with some good info on it, but you can always just google.
This sig wasn't worth reading, was it.
That's even better than moving and attacking with impunity under the cover of darkness (== nightvision).
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
allow remote viewing of approaching territory."
'C'mon troops, put it to full throttle, there's plains as far as the eye can see!'
***THUD***
Very nice technology indeed. But it is always the men behind the machines. These technologies can only augment but never substitute for skill, plan improvisation and mental toughness. In a way these gadgets become the weakest link when they fail besides steal the time away from *real* battlefield training.
Hmm. That subject reads like a spam email. Anyways... I understand how this would be useful for viewing terrain in dense smoke, etc. But it's not going to show you dynamic things like enemy troops, vehicles, and tanks that are moving around in the smoke with you. And since this appears to be of GPS-resolution, it's not even going to be able to show you small, dangerous things to avoid running into like ditches, holes, traps, mines, etc.
As for viewing distant terrain... well... I can use topo maps to remove mountains in realtime, right now. Sure, you need a brain and good visualization skills to navigate with a map, but maps aren't subject to power loss, EMF weapons, etc. We're talking about terrain here. That's pretty static stuff, no? Keep it simple.
I don't know, nudity in shades of green doesn't do much for me.
Anonymous Cowards - Oh God, How I hate you
Yeah, but ARPAnet was designed to survive a nuclear attack, not the latest Microsoft virus-storm du jour!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
That is a false analogy (Unproven = untrustworthy).
The Apple iPod is a good example.
A procurement officer for active military troops should have completely different standards of trustworthiness than civilians needing an MP3 player.
An unexpected failure of untested hardware can have drastically different costs depending on what you were trying to do when it conked out...
Additionally, the "innovations" of the IPod were in the areas of reliability and portability- the actual task of "playing MP3s from a hard disk" already had a decade of practice behind it. So far, Augmented Reality systems haven't worked well yet, even in laboratory situations.
The trouble with goggles, or anything that fills a large angle of view (e.g. IMAX) is that they're compelling and immersive in a way that smaller displays can't really match. Which is great for entertainment, but potentially very dangerous in situations where the augmented stuff is not 100% trustworthy and ought to be treated with some degree of healthy scepticism. Maybe the AR overlays could be drawn in luminous flamingo pink or something, just to make damn sure you didn't forget what was what.
I remember a driver in Germany a couple of years back who drove though a couple of barriers, past several yelling workmen and into a river. All because his in-car GPS navigation was telling him that there was a completed bridge there. And that was a just a teeny little display.
(Side note: "removing" mountains sounds like a truly horrible idea. I have vivid memories of playing the excellent flight sim EF2000 - this was back in the days of software rendering when depth-buffering was still something to be avoided. So the engine just drew the terrain first, and buildings afterward, because, hey, buildings are on top of terrain, right? Unfortunately this didn't cope with occlusion, and I lost count of the number of times I crashed into a bleedin' great hill while on a bee-line for an airfield that was clearly visible right in front of me...)
First, if you can't see where your fellow soldiers are, you're looking at a wireframe model of a world that you can't shoot into. How do you know where our guys are? This isn't a redundant post, because i need to add
Second, if you add GPS for all our folks into the picture, all the enemy needs to do is take one set of goggles and kaboom! there go our troops.
That said, i agree with the point that these are adding to the trivialisation of wartime 'kills' and the overlap of technology and wargames. But this has been coming for a long time, from way back in the world of 'duckhunt.' (which was pretty advanced itself, all things considered...) Hurt my spine in an accident one year, though, spent hours learnign to shoot those stupid ducks. Do i now look upon animated ducks with a dispassionate urge to blow them away? No. But that's not quite the same as human to human violence on the box. (PETA, leave me alone: it's NOT the same, and doesn't have the same effect. We can argue that one out when the US goes to war against waterfowl.)
So tell me: does anyone else think of the ad for the - what was it, navy seals, is army, that has the war game with the kids being beat to shreds by some mystery troup, and it turns out that it's real US forces playing the war game against them? Frankly, i think that the US forces are using this marketing tool badly- they are smudging that line just as far and as fast as they can. But sooner or later, the kids who sign up get to find out that it's not a game.
Realising that i've digressed from my original point: It's a catch-22. Put nobody else in the picture, all you have is a big sign saying 'you are here' on a digitised map. Good for sandstorms but won't tell you whether the guy hiding behind the wall up ahead is your buddy or your foe, and if you put in stuff that tells you this- you open the door for all those foes to know where your buddies are when they take you and your nifty goggles too. What's an army to do?
"I'd say 'Have a good time,' but arson is still illegal.
Many other people call this augmented reality, but Steve Mann thinks that of the useful functions of the system would be to screen out advitisements, hence "diminished" as well as "augmented" reality forms "enhanced visions."
One unfortunate thing is that it can be hard to get by when one's enhanced vison is suddenly removed, as Mr. Mann's recent troubles show.
I'd also like to note that ideas about augmented reality are pretty central to ubiquitous computing.
This sig wasn't worth reading, was it.
Hey, wait a minute, weren't we just complaining about this in yesterday's thread about people cheating by using the wireframe views to track and kill there enemies? Sheez, do we ever learn. F--ing Noobs. -Iowa
"He who laughs last, didn't get the joke."-Cap
"With the sandstorm control of the skies is useless, here... you need desert power!"
Please don't send me to Guantanamo now...
It's called Battlezone!
e rs/Atari/battlezone.html
Atari where so ahead of the game with wire frame rendering of objects in the battle arena so that you could see the enemy approaching.
Wow! Smart stuff.
http://www.gamearchive.com/Video_Games/Manufactur
Even if we can "see" through a sandstorm by means of this goggle, can the planes handle it? I've always thought that jet engines need streams of clean and particle-free cold air in order to run....This technology can probably work through dense fog and rain, but personally I think sandstorm is pushing it a bit too far.
Has anyone else noticed those helmet-mounted heads-up-displays that many of the soldiers have been wearing?
What are those? Are those some releated technology?
Its first full-fledged demonstration of the system will come in late May or early June, at the Wallops Island test flight center.
Wallhack @ Wallops?
----------------------- Arm the homeless.
{insert catchy reference to garoyles here}
Perhaps such a system could even incorporate a way of minimising the risk of friendly fire?
"Look out for those goats!"
"What goats?"
Blaaaart *splat*
And bang goes any chance of one Iraqi herdsman being happy to see you.
well... at least it'll be possible to tell a man dressed on Muslim-woman clothes. I've read this is a common practice they use to hide and avoid capture.
"We are the US army. Do not be afraid. Resistance is futile."
The tech for the HMD, see-through smoke/walls, etc and see your buddies/bad guys, is in development. It has a long way to go until it will work effectively on the battlefield, or on the highway.
The HMD show is very particular for pilots. They gotta wear bulky head gear anyway - and it will stay pretty much in place. Commercial HMDs look pretty strange and very very few of them stay in one place very long (I call em hand held head mounted displays). That totally blows away any 'registration' you have between the real and virtual worlds.
obtaining that registration is itself a huge task. GPS is unreliable, inaccurate, and does not give orientation. Interial trackers can give orientation, but with severe drift over short periods of time. If you dont re-register them every minute or less, registration becomes useless.
and if the user moves their head about (running, diving for cover, etc) how well should all that augmented reality be displayed? Rock steady over the objects as they move quickly? Dropped out entirely (aw ^#$ where did that hole go!) not easy.
and passing info on my location to my buddies, sensor info on baddies, etc. ad hoc mobile networks etc. Now give the baddies a radio homing device.
Oh and power consumption? The batteries for these things could double as bombs. Add a couple guys to each squad to carry spares for everyone too.
if and when these problems get addressed, the devices will change the face of urban combat. Since the military is always planning/funding to fight the last war, we will probably see more $$ spent on the tech soon. Hopefully the civilian population will find good uses for it too (cell phone cameras w/gps being just the start).
Just never wear them on April 1st. Who knows what the guys at the lab cooked up for shannanagons.
"Very funny, Kurt. Now put the lake image back and order me a thick towel. And lose the bra-and-panties motif from the Seargent. I can't talk to him with a strait face when its on."
Table-ized A.I.
You do raise a good point, but the military also doesn't have to reinvent the wheel everytime they want to do something. Like Apple, even more so, Sony, the military has this weird desire to make everything from scratch or make it proprietary. While understanding that helps security and reliability, it also adds immensely to cost and "adoption through practicality"
Also, I think a good measure of durability and reliability IS the consumer market. If I am military enlisted I tend to take care of my equipment because I know it's not mine and that I will catch hell if I break it. Consumers, on the other hand, have little regard; drop things in water, and ultimately abuse things, which "test things to their limits." Let's not forget that there are consumers in sandstorms, high wind, snow, rain, fights, dirty environments, are "trained" too.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
Money flows like rivers, and those who can siphon it off to their personal/political Las Vegas or Phoenix want to dam it up, and control it, to implement their will. Sometimes I wish I could control where my tax money goes. I end up paying the government their mandatory money, then they funnel it off to their war, to corporate welfare, or to rich people. Then the trickle of money I have left needs to go to oxfam to help the humanitarian effort in iraq that the U.S. won't pay nearly enough of my tax money for.
everything
*THUD* "ow, what was that? It hurt, but i don't see antything in front of me"
"take off your goggles"
"Damn mountains"
Visibility is only about half the problem when flying in a sandstorm. Sand getting sucked into turbines or jet engines (and damaging them), sand abrading the windshields of cockpits, and sand abrading the leading edges of aircraft (especially the rotor blades of helicopters) are even greater problems. Perhaps these are surmountable problems, but I wouldn't go saying that this technology would make it feasbile to just go running into a sandstorm to do combat just yet.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
1. Set fire on oil well
2. When the smoke is thick enough, set tons of blocks of explosive on the road they are going.
3. Hide in a safe place and watch the explosion when their fleet pass
The problem is the availability of timely information, not just the information. I heard a story that the casuality of Canadians in Korean War is very small although they have bad equipments and weapons. Over-relying on equipments is the main reason of getting kill on battlefield.
A sig is redundant.
On news today featuring Japan's new spy sattelite, the reporter disclosed that it could detect object and their placement/dimension down to the meter. They also acknowledged that this was inferior to american technology.
Tanks yes then. People maybe?
"This would enable troops to see through sand storms and oil smoke of the kind currently hampering operations in the Gulf."
We can see through it already with current technology. Where exactly have you been?
Keep passing the open windows...
great, so how long before i can enable wireframe mode for the real world to see when my boss is coming around the corner?
Of the other story about online cheaters? :-)
They mod the game to see thru walls so to gain an unfair advantage
I'd rather be sailing...
"Alright damn it! Whoturned off the 'render buildings' option ?"
You have contradicted yourself, TIME "It has become one of the most critically acclaimed gadgets of the past two years..." has PROVEN it.
In the eyes of the military, the analogy "(Unproven = untrustworthy)" IS very much true. Since this is a device that would primarily be used by the military it falls greatly into that step of logic.
Scenario: You are in the military, at war, in a firefight... with your life and the life of your comrades in jeopardy, would you rather fight with an older rifle that time has proven never jams, or with the brand new one with the fancy gadgets on it (that has never been used before other than at the "proving grounds" of the contractor that manufactured it. It had "perfect" test results in their in house testing since day one but has never been discharged by a soldier before, needless to say, in combat)?
I choose the "proven" rifle every time I am faced with a choice like that and know if I operate it correctly I will get the results I expect.
-Joe
If we're all god's children, what's so special about Jesus? - Jimmy Carr
Additionally, Twirlip might have implied owning patents- I can't recall exactly. There was also another post which gave a good clue, but I can't find it either. (And slashdot doesn't even have an approximation of a good search engine!)
Ron has been known to use the nickname "Twirlip of the Mists"
Other people could've read that book...
But it is very understandable that such a celebrity might want to anonymize himself on a forum like Slashdot, so as to focus responses on what he says, not who he is.
Not damning, but interesting evidence nonetheless.
Since Rivest is all about information security, it would be amusing if a "traffic analysis" attack could strip him of an assumed identity. Twirlip has a high posting frequency- an automatically collected log of his userpage would reveal his daily schedule. Rivest lives in Massachusetts (a known time-zone), and often teaches an undergraduate class, so part of his schedule is public knowledge.
So, a quick test would be to list times Rivest was known to be lecturing in the past few years, and then look for any post from Twirlip inside that envelope.
(Of course, an individual could confound this style of analysis by pre-scheduling a forum post at a later time...)
It seems like what they've done here is take something similar to that system, match it with the positional gunsite system the Longbow uses to aim it's chain gun, and created a conformal HUD display. All in all very cool. I'm sure the next step is to put all this on a Predator and just leave the pilot sitting in the relative comfort of base camp. The military will start recruiting at CPL events.
As a side note, the inspiration for our system came from a true story. It turns out that a vast majority of plane crashes throughout the world come from what avionics people clinically call CFIT. That's Controlled Flight Into Terrain. Basically it means some moron pilot flew the damn thing into a mountain. Well, in the mountains in Chile some regional airline pilot was flying between two peaks when he receives a course correction from ATC. Visibility is low so he's flying almost entirely by instrumentation. Well he makes a correction in his flight computer for what he believes to be his next waypoint. The problem is he accidentally makes the correction for his _previous_ waypoint. So, following his orders, the plan prompltly goes into a hard turn to head on back to the new waypoint which is now behind him. Before he can figure out what was happening *kaboom* the plane becomes a permenant feature of the local terrain.
Who moderates the meta-moderators?
It would probably be a great aid for situation awareness for a pilot though; s/he can be freed from the task of digesting half a dozen different instruments and fly using a 3-d image when things don't go as planned. Combat missions are often flown under IFR-only conditions anyway, so you can only gain by adding another navigation device.
not being able to SEE where you are
going is not the most compelling reason
to avoid flying aircraft in high winds...
when you are going to conquer the rest of the arab world.
I've been informed that they have lots of both. Sand and oil, that is.
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
As someone who writes for a living, it's nice to be recognized as the source of the story, rather than the yahoo who figured out how to link to a story and attach some comments to it (no offense, Slashdot). Ars is a fine website in its own right, but should only be credited when it writes something of value to the community.
Put another way, that's why you comment your code, right? To point to it and say "I wrote that"?
Sounds a bit like full-on gargoyle mode in Snowcrash.
So long as they don't wire frame the walls. That would be cheating.
Environmentalism is the new Victorianism. Everyone ties on a green corset and pretends we're virtuous.
anywhere near the ladies's shower on base, right?
It's Christmas everyday with BitTorrent.
I think it's more an issue of figuring out where the viewer is in 3d space, and correctly rendering the image for them to see.
Another unmentionned aspect is also the whole idea of seeing a target as just that, a target. As far as I can imagine, it's a lot easier to blow up a bunch of polygons than to see someone's guts splattering all over the place in front of you. This might take away some of the 'think twice' factor... It's a technical advantage, but I wouldn't call it a moral advantage.
It seem the whole point of modern warfare is to be able to slaughter people without needing to hear them scream or see them bleed.
Mind the frickin' laser...
Don't forget the "millimetre-wave radar".
I know this can be useful for long range projections (in the sense of conjectures, not projectiles, though maybe them too), but is a mountain really the first thing you want to be removing when you can't see ten feet ahead?
But seriously, what good is seeing through mountains when you can't NOCLIP?
We Are Familiar With Elephants By Virtue Of Their Size.
Most navigational and positional systems are inexact (couple of ft off target). So what would happen is that the soliders would keep bumping into stuff.
Another interesting scenario:
The enemy manufactures a strong elecromagnetic field which distrupts the uplink.
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
I guess, in some circumstances, cheating is a good thing. :}
Just follow the line. Simple as that.
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
If I type 'noclip' in the console, will this let me walk through walls? If so... I want one! :)
Isn't it considered "cheating" to view the world geometry in wire frame?
This gun is about as low tech as you can get, but it works in wind, snow, heat, mud and sand. The new ebombs can't do anything to it and I think that in some war in twenty years time it will still be the mainstay of 80% of all armies worldwide.
Considering that all the high tech currently being thrown at the soldiers in the gulf has not done anything to decrease the number of friendly fire incidents, I imangine that there are only going to be more injuries made using these goggles as soldiers become reliant on it.
The J-STARS ground surveillance system is designed to use radar to detect and track slow moving or semi-fixed land targets like vehicles and relay the information to ground units. The system consists of aircraft with high energy radar and advanced signal processing combined with ground stations to receive the information.
Combined with a 3-D map of the battlefield, the location and movements of enemy forces beyond visual range would be a powerful asset. Even if it's as simple as a "red area" on the map to show pilots where *not* to go, that's a huge value. Assuming the system could be extended to ground troops, this type of information could make a huge difference in, e.g., urban areas where troops can't see past the buildings around them. I can think of plenty of Special Forces applications.
Imagine having a monocular on your non-dominant eye showing you a wireframe map of a city in both 2-D and 3-D space with estimated locations/movement of enemy units so you can navigate without making contact. The National Imaging and Mapping Agency has quietly been acquiring and processing high-res 3-D maps of most of the Earth, so it looks like we're well on the way to a totally geographic-aware force.
"I imagine one could also remove mountains to allow remote viewing of approaching territory" Isn't this *cheating*
auto-aim in some systems-- part of the recent effort of the DoD to install autonomous or semi-autonomous systems to reduce the number of personnel in a given system, in order to minimize error and reduce maintenance costs.
The Patriot missile system, for example, can be set to one of three levels: manual, semi-automatic, or fully automatic. In semi-automatic mode, it detects and assesses inbound targets and tells the operator, who decides what to do. In fully automatic, it detects, assesses, and engages inbound targets without the operator's help. As one might imagine, it is very fast in fully automatic mode.
Another auto-aim system is the Phalanx Close In Weapons System, designed to protect Navy ships from incoming missiles, planes, and high speed boats. It's been mentioned on slashdot many times before. The CIWS has a fully automatic radar system and an attached 20mm gatling gun as a last line of defense so incoming threats can't overwhelm the limited human capacity of the ship, and was deployed in 1977.
So far one of the only auto-aim technologies for ground troops is the TLOS, which detects the enemy's optical devices, like sniper scopes and laser designators, so the foot soldier can engage them faster than if he were searching with the naked eye. But this technology will no doubt be implemented on a wider scale in the next decade when the digital battlefield becomes mainstream. I would look more along the lines of Tactical Mobile Robotics to find auto-aim technologies. See Raptor, basically a sentry that never sleeps. Also, DARPA has a lot of autonomous technology projects in the works.
This is a fun program. Useful, too. I've been looking for commercial real estate, and use it to look at properties before driving over.
Wallhack!
Other than that, it's not that often that territory actually approaches you. Then again, I heard a story of a mountain going to see this Mohammed dude once...
Money for nothing, pix for free
With the time delay and the *current* state of technology, it would seem an LCD screen would be more appropriate for this kind of system. But alas, goggles are cooler. Goggles can make it into the press. And the very idea of goggles can get more funding.
Virtual Light Glasses, anyone?
Well, if the satellites (or surveillance drones) are getting images of people -- all you'd be able to see in front of you is what the top of their head looks like, and a blob of what the computer thinks the rest might look like.
First "nose art" on airplanes, now "scalp art" for soldiers to show off their favorite images.
hehe. wait till that happens. someone hacks err. cracks its way into the database, tinkers with it and all the pple out there don't see the deadly cliff...
I said the military SHOULD be like Apple. The iPod had a lot of "unprovens" & "unknowns" about it BEFORE its introduction. Time proved that it was good venture. The military would find that most things are this way if they are manufactured with precision and quality (as Apple does) I have posted that the military is often like Sony. They think because an item is proven or has the facts behind it that it is superior means it's the best to use. MiniDisc Memory Stick and Beta (possibly DVD+RW) are all examples of superior technology that proves that.
Apple often pushes the envelope with unproven and untested perception, but ALWAYS manufactures with high quality and precision, not just with components but design effieciency. Why can't the military save John & Susie Q Taxpayer a few bucks and do the same?
As for the scenario, actually I would choose the untested laser for my weapon, because it might give me the upper hand. Just as in the PC World, I know there are other proven options and other ways to get things done; as well as backup, if I need it. The military rarely tests multiple devices, instead; one that has been researched and developed on a 10 year process. By the time it reaches troops hands, it borders on being commercially availible anyway.
This can pose a problem. What if the iRaqis were to just use EyeTreks, GPS, WiFi, and an iPaq and be able to do this? They would have the technology that we plan to spend millions in research on and not have for 5 years! When our implementation was ready, they would have an even more powerful, much more scalable and open platform.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
Satellites are wonderful things, a real gods gift for recon. Regrettably, the ones that fly low enough to give the best pictures can't be in geosynchronous orbits. You can only see when the satellite is above your horizon and then it may be over you for just a few minutes and then a gap of half an hour or more before the next pass.
See my journal, I write things there
My 2
the FAA is one legendarily conservative bureaucracy. which is perhaps just as well, since airborne security and safety often hinges on what they do, but nobody could blame them for being bleeding-edge. these are the people who still won't certify GPS for first-line navigation equipment in general aviation, remember...
they'll move on synthetic vision, i would guess, about five years after it ships as standard equipment in an american-made car. before that, they might let it fly in an experimental-registered aircraft, if there's a standard-vision backup that can take over at moment's notice any time.
Obviously you've never seen 7 GI's piling into the back of a HummV because a tank that can shoot 1st round kills at 2Km 95% of the time while traveling at 45 MPH over is chasing them; tha's just training war is more intense.
Most commercial hardware is not designed to withstand the corrosive effects of chemical decontamination solutions, our DS2, decontaminating solution will strip the paint off your car in minutes. Ask your Dentist how much of his equipment got eaten up by disinfectent solutions they have to use. Realy think an Ipod could withstand thing like EMP from a near lightening strike or a nuclear detonation? How about I have an IPOD that's storing maps in my pocket and I get blown off a wall fall 10 feet and land on top of the darned thing.
When is the last time you asked consumer grade hardware to operated at -40 degrees or +50 degrees, aircraft can go from one to the other in minutes.
Military equipment is taken care of because people stake their lives on it working when its supposed to.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
The main reason the military does what it does is the following:
If a soldier is carrying a piece of equipment into battle, it has to be tested by soldiers under simulated military environments for years to make sure it is durable, in the worst possible environments, stress, and possible misuses for years. As the saying goes... "..it happens".
While the quality of a device may indeed be extremely high and it is supposed to last forever, until it is put through every form of hell that military testing can dream of, it will not be rushed into service.
This is why, to the US military, unproven = untrustworthy. They would rather put a weapon that can (and has proven to be able to) be put through the living hell of war... (explosions, environmental hazards, shock, being dropped, being handled by people far less than gingerly)... and still function to spec in the hands of its soldiers.
This is why John and Susie Q Taxpayer put up with the years of testing. When it's their son in combat using the new "untested laser" weapon and it falls into mud, or crude oil (muddying the lens that focuses the beam) and their son is killed by an enemy shooting a WWII era rifle that has proven to fire 100% of the time with any level of damage to it because he couldn't shoot first... John and Susie Q Taxpayer will sue the living bejeezus out of the U.S. government, or at the very least, get on TV 24/7 for 15 minutes of fame to "let everyone know" that the U.S. sends their boys out to combat with "unproven" and faulty (is how they will see it) weapons their lives depend on.
Besides, as for the US putting out old technology (because of the amount of time it is tested)... it just so happens that in a lot of aspects, the US is far ahead of the international curve on Technology anyhow (remember, by the time we find out about weapons very existence, they are no longer sensitive to "national security"... (ie, there's much better stuff in the lab, or just released to the field that we aren't allowed to see)).
Take the F-22... it's publicly known of now, but that plane is about 10 years old. Remember the age of the Stealth fighter and Bomber!
As per the Iraqis using new technology in combat... sure it's a possibility... but also remember public GPS has been dumbed down for the war to extreme innacuracy (100 yds of accuracy now, AT best, 300 yds at worst). The military band of GPS is, of course, still highly accurate!
Besides, an iPaq won't protect you from a 4000 lb satellite guided bomb. Not to mention, we have these little bombs that explode above their targets... H-bombs, I think they call them... if all else fails.
-Joe
If we're all god's children, what's so special about Jesus? - Jimmy Carr
"Multiply in your head" (ordered the compassionate Dr. Adams) "365,365,365,
365,365,365 by 365,365,365,365,365,365". He [ten-year-old Truman Henry
Safford] flew around the room like a top, pulled his pantaloons over the
tops of his boots, bit his hands, rolled his eyes in their sockets, sometimes
smiling and talking, and then seeming to be in an agony, until, in not more
than one minute, said he, 133,491,850,208,566,925,016,658,299,941,583,225!"
An electronic computer might do the job a little faster but it wouldn't be
as much fun to watch.
-- James R. Newman, "The World of Mathematics"
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