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Northrop Grumman To Develop Brain-Wave Binoculars
An anonymous reader writes "An AP wire reports that DARPA has granted a $6.7 million contract to Northrop Grumman to develop 'brainwave binoculars'. The binoculars will be built into a helmet, which will include EEG electrodes that will monitor the wearer's brain activity for patterns consistent with object identification/recognition. From what I can gather, the idea is that when you look at a far-off or partially obscured object without noticing it, your subconscious probably did notice it and tried, unsuccessfully, to identify it. The EEG in these binoculars would pick up on that kind of subconscious activity and draw the wearer's attention to the object in question. The goal is that these binoculars would be able to pick up on any object anywhere in the wearer's field of view, where a person can only pick up on things that he focuses both his eyes and his attention on. This delves into some very interesting territory: it would be an electronic device that uses human eyes to collect data, and even uses a human brain to partially process the data. Since it also passes its results back to the human providing the data and initial processing, it essentially adds a second processing loop in parallel to the wearer's visual system."
Does this remind anyone of the Necromunger Scope beings from Chronicles of Riddick?
Think about using this in interrogations.
Interrogator: "Do you recognize these photos of bomb making materials?"
Suspect: "No, no I don't."
Interrogator: "Liar! Our brain wave scanner says you do! Off to the waterboard with you!"
can your brain be made to run Linux?
In Soviet Russia jokes are formulaic and decidedly non-humorous.
I remember reading about the research behind that; that the "subconscious" detected things quicker than the conscious human. But if I could find it again, I'd like to see the details of the testing.
My guess is that the time between subconsciously and consciously recognizing something is used for verifications. So you get quicker results in the case where the image is, in fact, what you are asked to recognise, but you'd get false positives in the other cases.
I mean, recognizing threats is pretty important, evolution-wise. Since this device just takes existing data from the brain and feeds it back in, it's hard to believe it would be of any help, or we would have evolved the same thing.
garbage to hang on a GI that will distract him, or her, visually, at critical moments and which will run out of battery power at the worst possible times as well.
Remember Heinlein's comment about combat gear - it has to be easy enough for a grunt to use so that someone equipped with something simpler, like, say a rock, who then comes up from behind the soldier using the hardware and bashes his brains in while he's trying to read a vernier.
Agreed: As described this device would seem to bring specific attention to everything in your field of vision you didn't take the time to try to identify.
More useful, in my opinion, would be one of the three other possabilities:
1) Auto zoom/focus on anything you attempt to focus on.
2) Perform its own pattern/image recognition and attempt to highlight things which it deems potentially important (not just everything you see).
3) Create an artifical focus (flat focus) for the field of vision (I suppose this would not need to read brainwaves, and I'm not sure if that would be helpful or cluttering).
The primate brain evolved in a situation where noticing hidden things was kind of important. Didn't see that shape in the grass? Oops, it was a skulking lion, you're dead, return genome to sender. We're the product of millions of years of life-or-death vision tests, and as a consequence, we're pretty good at it.
This device is based on the idea that some part of your brain might notice a hidden thing, but doesn't bother to tell the rest of you so you can react. This is evolutionary suicide. I'd have a hard time coming up with a trait that would be naturally selected out of the gene pool faster.
If this device worked, anyone who could use it would have gone extinct long ago.
Northrop Grumman built the lunar lander and the B-2 Stealth Bomber...as well as countless other fixed-wing aircraft (manned and unmanned).
They build the world's most advanced aircraft carriers and attack submarines. They have divisions that build systems from the mundane to the insane. Example - the division in Reston, Virginia has been selling large-scale (up to 84") touchtable computer systems FOR YEARS...not IN years. They build any number of other cutting-edge sensor systems, high-energy defensive lasers, and other systems too black to discuss.
They also don't announce things like this because someone in marketing thinks that it will look cool, garner attention, or suppress some other company from doing the same thing. They submit proposals to clients to fund the development and the clients only decide to use THEIR OWN money to fund it after reviewing NGC's plan, technology, key resources, and past performance...and then decided that the effort is low enough risk to warrant the investment.
NGC doesn't announce vaporware. They announce that they have been selected by someone else once again to do what does not seem possible.
Ask Neil Armstrong how he feels about Northrop Grumman.
BTW, the movie Apollo 13 shows a Grumman employee being somewhat of a weasel and Gary Sinise playing NASA astronaut Ken Mattingly being a hero. The fact is that Grumman employee Sam Greenberg was the individual on the ground who devised the scheme to route the power from the LM to the CM...not Mattingly...but I suppose it's easier to portray an astronaut as a hero and a contractor as a weasel.
That said, Sam Greenberg was a hell of a guy...and was also responsible for a great gag at the time - he had Grumman create an invoice for $312,421.24 and had them send it to North American Rockwell (CM builder) for "towing fees" for bringing the CM (and crew) back home. Rockwell refused to pay...even though Sam built in a per mile discount for paying cash. :)
One can only wonder whether this is yet more Pentagon disinformation to scare dim-witted Third World generals, like the anti-matter bomb.
...are we scared yet?