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US Army To Push X-Files Tech Development
An anonymous reader writes "The US Army is ramping up the development of technology right out of the X-Files; 'making science fiction into reality' as Dr. John Parmentola — Director of their Research and Laboratory Management — puts it. The list of things currently in the works is amazing: regenerating body parts on 'nano-scaffolding,' telepathy through electronic impulses in the scalp, and self-aware virtual photorealistic soldiers that can be deployed in the battlefield through 'quantum ghost imaging.' To test these they want to use them into a massively multiplayer online games like World of Warcraft or Eve online."
I'll only believe it when I see it.
*whistles the X-Files theme*
How can a virtual photorealistic soldier also be self-aware?
Wow, a 7 digit ID - let that be a lesson in the perils of procrastination.
I for one, would like to welcome our new Quantum Ghost Imaging Overlords...
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
X-Files is dead, it's Fringe now. Get up to speed or turn the cite over to someone up a current nerd and geek culture~
Also
Dr. John Parmentola is a total villain~ just look at him:
http://www.nano-dds.com/Pics/Parmentola-Bio.pdf
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
> To test these they want to use them into a massively multi-player online games like World of Warcraft or Eve online."
Doesn't that violate the TOS?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I believe the director of DARPA typically leaves with a change in administration, and it wouldn't surprise me if that was the case in other such agencies. Then there's the whole change in funding thing that may happen.
I know a lot of people in the defense research community are a bit nervous now. Be interesting to see what happens after January.
Step 1: Read theoretical physics journal
Step 2: Claim principles could be adapted to military uses in unrealistic time frames
Step 3: Profit!
No ??? even needed.
Just FYI: Obama doesn't become president till January.
So you know...
sweet, i can finally get my own holoduke. too bad there's no shrink-ray on that list.
technology-enabled telepathy, techlepathy, or whatever you want to call it, is still manipulating objects with your mind. and there are many instances where directly transmitting commands with neural impulses would be preferable over verbal commands. for instance, if you were trying to control a UAV drone it would be far more intuitive to be able to make the plane turn via thoughts than with clumsy voice commands. you'd have a much wider range of control that's both, more natural and also quicker, than voice commands.
i'm more disturbed by this:
--yea, that and carrying out cover ups.
Quantum ghost imaging is a real effect that is potentially useful, but there is skepticism that it's an "entangled photon" quantum effect and not just an effect that is due to the ordinary interference of light waves (which is also ultimately quantum of course but can be predicted with classical physics).
...before we have enough troops to deal with the situation in Afghanistan. Now, if we can only get the Taliban to watch CNN.
Faced with cuts in military funding by the upcoming Obama administration, this is deigned to convince people that the defense department comes up with a lot of gee-whiz things they really shouldn't let their representatives eliminate.
If your theory is different from practice, then your theory is wrong.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.
In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.
The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present
* and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientifictechnological elite.
It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system -- ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.
I always thought it was CPMs, until someone reminded me that Americans can't pronounce "Z" correctly. Then it made sense...
Dr. Alan Russell is the Distinguished University Professor of Surgery and the Founding Director of the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh. He has published more than 125 articles in refereed journals, one book, and 10 book chapters. Dr. Russell holds 14 patents, with 13 additional pending patents. Dr. Russell has given more than 250 national and international invited lectures, and has received numerous prestigious awards for his contributions to research, teaching and public service. For more information on Dr. Russell and the Russell Lab, please visit his website at http://www.mirm.pitt.edu/russell/.
I had the opportunity to attend a lecture entitled "The Hope and Hype of Regenerative Medicine" last Wednesday evening in Cambridge, MA (10/29/2008) hosted by Vertex Pharmaceuticals. This lecture was profoundly interesting and awe-inspiring. Simply amazing what can be done for people in need of replacement of internal organs: bladders have been successfully grown and implanted in 6 children, both a vagina and uterus have been replaced in in pigs, and the tip of a human finger grew back after being accidentally amputated by the propeller of a small model airplane engine. The photographs and videos were quite graphic but show the power of this new type of medical research, some based on stem cell research. Current research is directed at replacing damaged cardiac tissue and the replenishment of islet cells to the pancreas to treat diabetes.
From what I read it should be possible to create images from paired photons over any distance. If we can read a photon a meter distant by observing its entangled twin, can't we just as easily do the same trick with photons from the edge of the visible universe?
-Joe
Get off my virtual lawn, you damned virtual kids!
Britain just has/had a different alphabet song, though really Sesame Street has been shown on English TV for so long now (since 1969) the american one has long since "won". You just learn the american song says "zee" but the correct name is "zed", and learn to blame the "dumb americans", too (gotta start indoctrinating kids with prejudices early, you know!)
Note that and (&) used to be the last "letter" of the British English alphabet, so the old english alphabet song used to end "and per se and" (not "zee"), which was then corrupted into "ampersand" ...and then dropped from the alphabet: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ampersand
How will developing flashlights which constantly have smoke or dust in the path of the beam help the army?
What if Tetris was invented by Nazis?
Hadn't encountered "Quantum Ghost Imaging" before. (If it provides a practical system for imaging a objects without exposing that an observer exists and/or without the observer having a clear line-of-sight for ordinary optics, the military applications would be obvious.)
But building replacement body parts and organs on nano-scaffolding is working fine in the laboratory. It's just a little engineering development and regulatory approval from deployment. The military knows how to fund and direct practical engineering development, can fast-track or sidestep regulatory approval, and has a continuing supply of people who need replacement body parts or substitutes to recover function. It makes perfect sense for the military to drive the final development and deployment of this technology, bringing their wounded back to full health rather than giving them a prosthetic and a pension.
The military is already flying and driving vehicles and aiming and firing weapons in difficult environments using "mechanical telepathy" - magnetic sensors in a helmet detecting the fields from the currents from the firing of nerves in - guess where - the speech center (among others). (While you're strapped into a fighter plane doing a 5-G maneuver or a helicopter shaking from flack: Look at a target and/or point a finger at it. When the targeting marker in the heads-up goggles is on it, think "BANG!". Just for one example.) Meanwhile the same technology is doing a very good job of speech recognition on subvocalization. So why not use it to drive a radio to "think-talk" to another guy in the unit?
Since at least the Vietnam era the US military has been a consumer and designer of role-playing game system products and video games, for good reason and with very good results. After noting that the soldiers who played the most on the video games in the PX were also some of the best shots, pilots, tank drivers and gunners, etc. they commissioned videogames with realistic weapon characteristics as training aids: Fun and effective, and a LOT cheaper than full-blown simulators. Role-playing game systems, meanwhile, greatly improved "war games" strategy practice and military planning, and they stay current with developments in the field (and are a major customer of some of the companies as well). Using a MMORG to do a Turing test, along with further development, on a computer-simulation of a soldier (in preparation for deploying AI weapon systems) fits right in and makes perfect sense to me.
So it looks to me like somebody is "pulling a Proxmire" - finding some government research that SOUNDS screwy and characterizing it to make it sound as ridiculous as possible in the public press.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Can someone please exlplain how it is that a bunch of irregulars with poorly maintained AK-47 rifles and surplus Katyusha rockets that date back to the cold war can keep us on our toes in Afghanistan when we have all of this high tech and expensive army gear? Heck, the amount that we spend to equip and train one US soldier would probably equip a whole company of Taliban. If the army wants more and better soldiers then how about doing simple things like raising base salaries for our military, improving the quality of our training programs, and taking back control of supply and logistics from Halliburton and KBR who seem to be much more interested in how much they can possibly bill the government and much less interested in actually helping our fighting men and women.
Soldier 1: :::Enemy behind the wall on the left by the palm tree.:::
Soldier 2: :::Enemy behind the wall on the left by the palm tree.:::
Soldier 3: :::Enemy behind the wall on the left by the palm tree.:::
Soldier 4: :::Enemy behind the wall on the left by the palm tree. Hey, wait a minute! That reminds me, the mailman and my wife were pretty friendly last time I was home...:::
Soldier 5: :::Enemy behing the wall on the left by the palm tree:::
Soldiers 1, 2, 3: :::WTF?! Enemy behind the wall on the left by the palm tree!:::
Soldier 5: :::I'll bet he's got a package for her!:::
Soldier 4: :::What's THAT supposed to mean?:::
Soldier 6: :::Dude, your wife's bangin the mailman!:::
Soldier 5: :::HE'S GOT AN RPG!!!:::
Soldier 4: :::Dude, that's not funny!:::
Soldier 5: :::NO! THE GUY BEHIND TH-.....
Fwishhhh! BOOOOOM!
Soldiers 1, 2, 3, 4, 6: :::Oh... *That* guy.....:::
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....