back to article DARPA demos cyborg binoculars to spot the enemy

The US Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) reports that field trials of a new threat detection system, which augments cameras with a human operator's brainwaves, has shown remarkable success in spotting potential threats. DARPAs been working on the snappily titled Cognitive Technology Threat Warning System (CT2WS …

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  1. Tank boy
    FAIL

    An interesting idea.

    But carpet bombing is much more effective.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: An interesting idea.

      Yeah but this system tells you *where* to carpet bomb.

      1. Tank boy

        Re: Re: An interesting idea.

        'Yeah but this system tells you *where* to carpet bomb.'

        Carpet bombing isn't a precise science, just good enough for government work. Drop enough 'rocks' on their head, they'll get the point.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Planet of the Apes

    Could a monkey replace the operator. I wonder what state the operator's brain would be in after a few hours of 10 images per second. What if you blink?

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Devil

      Gunnm idea, mylord!

      Clearly they will have to surgically remove the operator's brain and eyes and put the stuff into a hermetically sealed live support box ("brain-with-eyes in a box"). The brain-with-eyes is then flashed images captured by a camera, brainwaves are read and a audible alarm will go off if something of interest is detected.

      Frontline personnel can then carry the box on missions and scan the environment with it (like in Aliens), mount it onto armored vehicles or on the axis of a machine gun etc...

      1. Grikath

        Re: Gunnm idea, mylord!

        prior art.... the Ship Who Sang... :P

        1. Darkwolf

          Re: Gunnm idea, mylord!

          Eventually "The Ship Who Sang" led to "The Ship Who Killed".

          Well, sounds like we may be skipping a step there.

    2. Thorne
      Terminator

      Re: Planet of the Apes

      Poor monkeys. We could use homeless people and solve two problems at one

      1. 404
        Trollface

        it does pay well...

        ...run on Android and all the internet you can eat - you *are* the cloud....

        ;)

    3. M7S

      Re: Planet of the Apes

      We need to be careful here. Wasn't monkey's watching something (admittedly not fit for family viewing) continuously the cause of Rage in 28 Days...?

  3. Jim McDonald

    Clockwork Orange springs to mind when the eyelids are held back to allow uninterrupted images to be played to the victim... err I mean operator

  4. Ryan 7

    This could be useful to disabled veterans

    I'm sure there would be psychiatric benefits to them knowing they can still be useful to their unit.

  5. Matt_payne666

    And here we have an image of an operator after a few minutes of having images flashed at his face... He's downed tools and fired up the Xbox instead...

  6. E 2

    47% may not be that bad.

    Given the USA military penchant for blowing up wedding parties in the middle east, 47% might be a marked improvement.

  7. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Holmes

    May be of limited use.

    There doesn't seem to be many "threats" leaving impression on the visual fields in Afghanistan. We read:

    "There were so many IEDs you had to watch every step and literally walk in the footprints of the guy in front of you. The Marines were leaving trails of bottle tops or sweets to mark cleared paths. I didn’t see a bullet fired in anger, it was just IEDs. Marines love to fight, but no one wants to go out on eight-hour patrols every day, through ice cold mud, when nothing ever happens apart from occasionally seeing one of their buddies get blown up."

  8. Blofeld's Cat
    Coat

    Joo Janta 200 ?

    Presumably when a threat is detected the lenses go completely black.

    It has the towel in a pocket

  9. Martin Budden Silver badge

    I'd be more concerned with false negatives.

    Those are the ones that are going to hurt you.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    ROTM!!

    At least they now need to keep some of us alive so they can USE OUR BRAINS!

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