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US Army To Push X-Files Tech Development
Posted by
samzenpus
on Wed Nov 05, 2008 07:20 PM
from the the-truth-is-out-there dept.
from the the-truth-is-out-there dept.
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."
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Submission: US Army to Push X-Files Tech Development by Anonymous Coward
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Well... (Score:5, Funny)
I'll only believe it when I see it.
*whistles the X-Files theme*
It's already here! (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe the US army bought a chinese wow farming bot and modified it somewhat to react on the maps / whatever sent by them instead for RL usage? :D
Sucks if they run away to pick up flowers or corpse camp though.
Re:Well... (Score:5, Funny)
To test these they want to use them into a massively multi-player online games like World of Warcraft or Eve online.
There's no science here... they just want to play more games. I can imagine the staff meeting :
Any ideas how we can get more time off to farm uber gear?
No sir, all our team are working on high tech projects, sir!
Any chance we could combine my WoW playing with these "hitec" projects, and everyone will be happy?
Sir yes sir!
Parent
Re:Well... (Score:5, Interesting)
Not sure how easy it is to turn up the gain but how hard can it be to strap a can-tenna to one of the new mind controlled video game controllers?
CNN [cnet.com] already uses holograms.
Parent
Mutually exclusive? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
In the same way as the matrix representation of people? ;)
Re: (Score:2)
How can a virtual photorealistic soldier also be self-aware?
Virtually, of course!
Re:Mutually exclusive? (Score:5, Funny)
How can a virtual photorealistic soldier also be self-aware?
Please state the nature of your battlefield emergency.
Parent
stargate tech is better but some of it needs zpm's (Score:2)
stargate tech is better but some of it needs zpm's or some other high power source to use them.
Re:stargate tech is better but some of it needs zp (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Oblig (Score:4, Funny)
I for one, would like to welcome our new Quantum Ghost Imaging Overlords...
Fringe (Score:4, Funny)
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 [nano-dds.com]
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
I've watched Fringe. It's garbage.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Right, though I think Anna Torv [wikipedia.org] is quite hot in an athletic girl-next-doory sort of way. Of course, they have her gratuitously strip and climb into a tank of water in like, the first or second episode, that's how I know she has a really hot body. And that fringe was utter garbage, granted. But I'll still watch it because, hot.
Re: (Score:2)
!telepathy (Score:2)
There is a word for what they are doing [wikipedia.org] but it isn't telepathy
And is it really that necessary?
Throat mikes are plenty sensitive as it is and either way, you're going to have to send out RF to communicate.
Re:!telepathy (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
robots in WOW? (Score:4, Insightful)
> 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?
Re: (Score:2)
Re:robots in WOW? (Score:5, Funny)
Doesn't that violate the TOS?
I'm sure Blizzard would love to have a higher level of AI for its npcs. It would give the players something to aspire to.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Blizzard don't negotiate with terrorists :D
Re: (Score:2)
DOD trumps TOS
or
Cruise Missle hitting the server(s) makes problem go buh bye
Change in administration (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Change in administration (Score:5, Funny)
It's called February.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, I sort of meant what happens during the Obama administration, with a particular emphasis on the time shortly after the inauguration, and was using "January" in that context as a metonym.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I was going for the synecdochal aspect myself.
Project funding (Score:5, Funny)
Step 2: Claim principles could be adapted to military uses in unrealistic time frames
Step 3: Profit!
No ??? even needed.
Re:Project funding (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Heh. You're modded "funny", but you're right on the money (so to speak). This is typical [grant|budget|*] fishing behavior. Nobody's department ever gets funded by saying "we think we may be able to develop and field a 15% lighter combat boot in the next 5 years". No, you get money by saying "we are on the verge of being able to make our soldiers capable of three currently humanly impossible things that would have our enemies cowering before us--- if only we had the funding..."
Parent
!funny (Score:2)
Sure, what the scientists are doing might one day turn into something that saves a soldier's life, most current soldiers would probably prefer to see some of that rather go towards funding more down-to-earth spending on basic stuff like body armor etc.
I like Ike! (Score:2, Informative)
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex [msu.edu]. 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 pe
Alternate Ending (Score:2)
George W. Bush: What do you want me to do? I thought this was being handled. The truth is out there now. Toothpick Man: The truth has always been out there Mr. President. The people just don't want to believe.
Quantum ghost imaging not "really" quantum? (Score:5, Informative)
Wouldn't astronomers want this? (Score:4, Interesting)
-Joe
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
In the experiment mentioned by New Scientist, note that the setup uses an external light source. Some of the photons hit the object, while others are captured at the same time (but
They're manufacturing aliens??? (Score:2)
"The US Army is ramping up the development of technology right out of the X-Files, "making science fiction into reality"
I can't be bothered reading the article. This is slashdot after all. So can someone please tell me whether they're manufacturing the aliens or they've created some kind of reality distortion machine that literally makes science fiction real? I hope it's the later so we can all like like James T. Kirk and mate with green and blue alien women with excess body parts.
It's only a matter of time... (Score:3, Funny)
Great - the gov't is bankrupt... (Score:2)
good move ace. Let me know how that works out for ya.
RS
This is a press release (Score:5, Insightful)
The McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
X files technology eh?? (Score:4, Funny)
"X files" my butt. They're being Proxmired. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
How Does the Enemy Fight our Army on the Cheap? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How Does the Enemy Fight our Army on the Cheap? (Score:5, Insightful)
Those guys have been fighting wars on one front or another for centuries. They are very good at it.
Parent
Re:How Does the Enemy Fight our Army on the Cheap? (Score:5, Insightful)
No mod points, too bad.
To make it more clear: they have been fighting modern asymmetric wars for a very long time.
The people doing it now have practically grown up with it.
Even the USSR, with all their resources (and absolutely no qualm or HRW really worrying them) couldn't defeat these people (OK, so they had Uncle Sam's help - but anyway...)
Unfortunately, it also means that a western-style democracy is highly unlikely to work in such an environment.
There's just no concept of a "loyal opposition" in this region.
When you're defeated, it only means you have to try harder to overthrow your opponent next time.
And god forbid you follow the orders he issues from the capital - your peers might think you're a wuss.
Parent
Re:How Does the Enemy Fight our Army on the Cheap? (Score:4, Insightful)
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?
Does a bullet from an AK-47 kill any less than a bullet from a hi-tech rifle? Does a Katyusha rocket demolish vehicles and buildings less effectively than modern explosives? Both weapons are basically good enough, especially since the enemy is hardly interested in prolonged battles and control over territory. Their war is mostly one of symbols; have a little bombing here, kill a few people there. It means little in the grand scheme of things, but it locks their respective countries in a state of fear, something from which they ultimately hope to profit as the US inevitably will have to withdraw at some point.
How would you win such a war? The only way, I think, is to increase the wealth of that country: give them something to lose. Maybe if all the money invested so far had instead been used to buy agricultural products from them, they would be preparing for the next crop now instead of deciding where to put the next roadside bomb. Of course, there is little profit in that for the very large industry that rides on the back of those wars...
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Combat Telepathy Problems..... (Score:4, Funny)
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.....:::
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Just FYI: Obama doesn't become president till January.
So you know...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
sweet, i can finally get my own holoduke. too bad there's no shrink-ray on that list.