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Pentagon project to put game-like display on contact lenses

by Kyle Orland { Mar 21st 2008 at 3:00PM }

Using contact lenses to simply change your eye color is so passé. Using contact lenses to augment reality is where it's at. At least it is for the Pentagon, which has put out a request for information on a system to display data "not unlike information provided to players of first-person, shooter-type video games" directly on the surface of the human eye. Sounds kind of like those TV display glasses you hear about sometimes, except, y'know, actually cool.

The technology is a little out there, but it's not a total pipe dream. Researchers at the University of Washington are already working on a nano-scale prototype, and the Pentagon wants actual results out the project in three to five years. The means the technology could trickle down into the consumer market in about ten to fifteen years, just in time to be integrated into the Sony PlayStation 5 and the MicroTendo HyperBox 1080. We can't wait!

[Via Wired]

Let your PS3 drive you to work!

by Nick Doerr { Aug 4th 2007 at 11:00AM }

For those not in the know, there's this thing held every so often called the DARPA challenge where people modify cars to drive themselves across the land, instead of having people doing the, er, footwork. Anyway, San Diego based group Axion Racing was tired from making the cars drive themselves -- it was too easy, they said. So they decided to take a PS3 running Linux, slap it into the car, and have it process a series of camera information to assist in keeping the car on the road.

Yet another insane use for the PS3 and the Cell processor, if you ask us. This must be the only console to have such limitless applications, but this one borders on ridiculous. We're not saying it's a bad idea or it's sort of silly, but it has that "if we can do it, let's" vibe. It's an unnecessary way to do things, but Axion Racing is going to prove that the PS3 can, in fact, drive you to work if you let it.

[Thanks, Jason!]

Pentagon wants to make a supercomputer out of a Game Boy

by David Hinkle { Jun 7th 2007 at 5:00PM }

The new program is called STAP-BOY (space-time adaptive processing) and the goal is to turn "any Soldier, any Marine [into] an advanced sensor platform." To do this, the military is looking to take "commercial Graphics Processor Unit (GPU) hardware and software of the type currently used for fast geometry computations in hand-held electronic games like Nintendo's GAME BOY," gifting soldiers in the field with a "technique that enhances the ability of radars to detect targets that might otherwise be obscured." Right now, this can only be done by the most advanced of supercomputers.

As of now, Darpa figures it'll be ready to hand the project over to the Army by the end of 2008. Personally, we wouldn't want to be the guy in charge of using the gizmo, since we're sure we'd just play Tetris on the thing.

[Via Danger Room]