DARPA Researches Avatar Surrogates

Posted by Soulskill on Friday February 17, 2012 @07:27AM from the presumably-with-more-clothing dept.

kgeiger writes "Feeling blue? DARPA is funding a program to investigate the feasibility of battlefield cyborg-surrogates: 'In its 2012 budget, DARPA has decided to pour US $7 million into the 'Avatar Project,' whose goal is the following: "develop interfaces and algorithms to enable a soldier to effectively partner with a semi-autonomous bi-pedal machine and allow it to act as the soldier's surrogate."' Power and bandwidth constraints aside, what could go wrong? Chinese hackers swooping in and commandeering one's army?"

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pour US $7 million? by dj245 · 2012-02-17 07:30 · Score: 5, Insightful

The government doesn't pour $7 million. They dish it out with an eyedropper.

Not that $7 million isn't a lot of money for you and me, but for the US government it is a rounding error.

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Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
1. Re:pour US $7 million? by slartibartfastatp · 2012-02-17 07:46 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  The movie "Avatar" costed half a billion dollars - 7 millions seems too low a budget to make it real.
  
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