US military developing multi-focus augmented reality contact lenses | Hacker News Reader

US military developing multi-focus augmented reality contact lenses

extremetech.com

51 pointsmrsebastian15 comments

I'm not sure 'contacts' are a good match with 'soldier'.

Gear for soldiers needs to be rugged, idiot proof, and easy to work with. Inserting contacts to gear-up for a patrol would seem to be none of those.

I'm not adverse to the idea .. I would have liked to use this myself, back in the day .. but we need to keep in mind that information overload is a very real problem for these guys.

" A screaming red display flashes up on the goggles informing him that the millimeter-wave radar has noticed a stream of bullets headed in his direction and would you like to know where they came from, sir?

He turns off all of the techno-sh in his goggles. All it does is confuse him; he stands there reading statistics about his own death even as it's happening to him. Very post-modern. Time to get immersed in Reality, like all the people around him."

~Snow Crash

I wonder if something like this could be surgically implanted behind the cornea, and then removed at the end of service? Just a thought.

I expect the first troops to get it will be the ones who already use HUDs.

Contacts are a horrendous ideas. In fact soldiers are specifically not to wear contacts into a combat zone because the heat of an IED explosion can fuse it to the cornea.

I _knew_ wearing Birth Control Goggles were a good idea. Best glasses I've ever owned - sturdy and difficult to break.

Pity that on me they made me look mildly retarded.

You can spend the rest of the day thinking of practical and non-practical uses for technology such as this.

I'm more interested in this tech as I see it as humanity's next, and perhaps biggest, step towards the singularity. The introduction of eye optics such as this is going to create a very clear division in our culture.

Just like my grandmother wants nothing to do with a PC there will be those who will want nothing to do with wearing, or implanting anything that gets them closer to their computer.

You can argue that those who have never touched a PC/Internet have evolved differently than those who haven't. So to the people who do embrace this tech will spin off and start to 'evolve' at a different pace/way than those who do not. This isn't like an iPad though. It's pretty easy for most to digest why that's better than always lugging around you laptop. I don't see this tech being so popular among the masses. However, I do see it being very popular among certain pockets of people.

$ puts "US military developing #{Faker::Company.catch_phrase}"

Seems like there's a lot more entertainment potential than military.

I disagree. The ability to have a myriad of information as an individual soldier on the field could prove to be invaluable. Think about squad mates that get separated from groups. With technology like this you could see a top down map over your location what his/her position is and where you are relatively ala a Battlefield 3 or Modern Warfare 3 esque mini map. Also consider the ability to reduce friendly fire by being able to see exactly where an artillery strike is being painted and your relative position to that strike. These are just a few applications off the top of my head, but I think that augmented reality has the potential to dramatically aide the armed forces.

Then they need a lot of smarter military who can integrate this info, while keeping a clear head in the middle of a firefight, and yet be able to follow orders to the death. Soldiers aren't supposed to win every battle. I expect that between the mental load, the cost of deployment, possible data changes by enemy hackers, and simply being able to pick up dead soldier's equipment and use it, that this will never be something for general rank and file infantry, likely just the officers. 99% of usage will be for entertainment.

those are just the engineering challenges,

you could probably do some sort of reverse retina scan to make sure they're only used by the intended wearer

the threat of hackers applies to any number of technologies currently in use by the military

human causulities are the biggest limitation on the projection of US power, you might as well work on the assumption that you have to emerge from every battle as unscathed as possible

> Then they need a lot of smarter military who can integrate this info, while keeping a clear head in the middle of a firefight, and yet be able to follow orders to the death.

Not trying to start a flame war, but I believe that modern video games are prepping for that. If you've played any of the modern shooters, you need to be good at keeping an eye on your HUD while tracking targets and navigating through your environment.

How long until a YouTuber does a Google Glass / iOptiks on the battlefield parody. . .

Can't wait to see this.

Was involved in the British Army BOWMAN (Better Off With Map And Nokia) system which when finally delivered included a mobile base station that needed a specially strengthened LandRover to carry, a wrist mounted data terminal that weighted 5lbs and batteries that were the size/weight/cost of a small car.

Ha, I had to check out that 'map and Nokia' acronym... it's true!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowman_%28communications_system...

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