DARPA Shows Off Their Latest Shinies

coondoggie writes with news that the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has released their top nine strategic research programs via a 57-page report last week. The overarching theme seems to be big long term goals that could result in major advances in technology. "DARPA's projects run the gamut from building extremely fast, secure networks, and developing higher, longer flying unmanned aircraft to bio-related advances that help bring vaccines to a useful state faster and space technologies that offer modular satellite systems."

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[WindBourne]

It would appear that the anti-intellectual knee jerk response posted first. I have worked for both DOD (via darpa grants) and NSA, and have to say that I like their response more than I like yours. Generally, they offer some form of insite that I might miss (but almost certainly do not agree with). OTH, your was just a waste of space and time.

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[OeLeWaPpErKe]

How is that anti-intellectual ? Perhaps you should visit a campus once. Note the large presence of, shall we say, people who exonerate people like massacrers like Che Guevara and blame all of society's ills on the military. Or whoever they are sure won't retaliate (note for example, the dead silence about Sri Lanka's misdeeds since that government sued and, shall we say, lightly persuaded, a BBC press team to leave).

Unless of course, you're claiming that campuses don't have intellectuals. That newspapers do

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[WindBourne]

How is that anti-intellectual ? Perhaps you should visit a campus once. Note the large presence of, shall we say, people who exonerate people like massacrers like Che Guevara and blame all of society's ills on the military. Or whoever they are sure won't retaliate (note for example, the dead silence about Sri Lanka's misdeeds since that government sued and, shall we say, lightly persuaded, a BBC press team to leave).
That same garbage occurred in the 60's/70's. And it is normally, the the same kind of idi

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[veranikon]

It's sad to see a detailed point-by-point response, whether the popular option of this thread agrees with it or not, be modded down as 'troll,' The involuntary nervous system now extends to typing fingertips, as per the latest evolution?

Re:Cue Anti-Military Responses

[Yvanhoe]

Well, as a peacenik myself, I am fairly happy to see two very insightful research topics to help foster world peace :
* Accelerated Development and Production of Therapeutics: rapidly and inexpensively manufacture millions of doses of life saving drugs or vaccines in weeks, instead of the years required to ramp up today's manufacturing practices
* Real-Time Accurate Language Translation: real-time machine language translation of structured and unstructured text and speech with near-expert human translation accuracy.

Note how only one theme is dedicated to the creation of more powerful weapons. This is truly American military research and damn yeah, this is sommething you should be proud of (not me, I am a surrendering froggy)

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[Tubal-Cain]

Note how only one theme is dedicated to the creation of more powerful weapons.

More powerful? I dunno. Will probably be more incapacitating than lethal for some time (only causing skin burns unless you focus it on one spot). But definitely longer range and more accurate.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Well, people pull the trigger, weapons do not (yet) most of the time. It's a totally different ballgame to develop a weapon cabability for the sake of intellectual curiosity and economic progress than to decide to use any kind of weapon (say, a nail cutter) with deadly force to meet some abstract political ideal.

A bit over generalized?

[smaddox]

These "programs" seem a bit over generalized. I mean "High Productivity Computing Systems"? I think there are a few other groups working in that area.

It would take me a few minutes to think of something that doesn't fall under these 9 topics.

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[Red Flayer]

Well, if you read the actual report, instead of the executive summary, there's a lot more detail. Not a huge amount (how do you adequately describe the advanced research work of thousands of people in just 57 pages?), but enough to clue us in to the specifics.

Re:A bit over generalized?

[bughunter]

They seem over-generalized because the Network World author tried to summarize a 57-page strategic plan into a 2-page fluff piece. And strategic plans are rather generalized to begin with.

My employer holds some DARPA contracts, and while I am not free (as in speech) to be specific at this time, I can alert you to stay tuned for some very specific announcements and demos of some Really Cool Shit in the area of unmanned aerial vehicles...

NOT a DARPA publication

[Red Flayer]

I call fraud. From the supposed DARPA publication (emphasis mine):

-Networks: self-forming, robust, self-defending networks at the strategic and tactical level are the key to network-centric warfare; these networks will use spectrum far more efficiently and resist disruption if the GPS time signal is unavailable.

We all know that no government agency would refer to this as anything but cyberwarfare.

Hence, I am discounting the validity of the entire article.

Editors, please vet the articles a little more thoroughly. I don;t know who is responsible for the slip-up, but it's amazing this sham of an article was allowed through the tight-as-an-ant's-ass controls on the slashdot main page that we have come to love and respect.

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[Dr. Eggman]

network-centric warfare is quite different. It's about physical forces communicating and utilizing networks built from the units themselves rather than a wholly "cyberspace" environment. Check out the Wikipedia entry [wikipedia.org] for a more indepth differentiation.

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[eyenot]

. . . but the article links to the DARPA publication in question (at http://www.darpa.mil/Docs/StratPlan09.pdf [darpa.mil] , in case you missed the link that's in the first paragraph of the NetWorkWorld article).

And right there on page 14/57:

Networks: self-forming, robust, self-defending networks at the strategic and tactical level are the key to network-centric warfare; these networks will use spectrum far more efficiently and resist disruption if the GPS time signal is unavailable (Section 3.1).

And on page 18/57:

The

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[Red Flayer]

That part that I blokcquoted -- it's from the DARPA publication, that the author of the linked blogpost quoted.

You may want to have your sarcasm detector checked, have you had it serviced in the past two years?

OK, it wasn't *the best* attempt at humor, but surely you could detect the tongue-in-cheekiness of it?

IIRC, there was quite an uproar the past few times here that the term "cyber warfare" was used by a government entity (like the Air Force's Cyber Command)... I found it kind of humorous (the upro

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[DNS-and-BIND]

The perfect example of "not funny internet humor" by a totally ignorant person. Depressingly common these days. Leave making jokes to the pros, OK?

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[Red Flayer]

Are you a "sometimes" troll or do you troll all the time?

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[Hythlodaeus]

Cyberwarfare means hacking. Network-centric warfare means soldiers with iPhones.

But they were such quiet neighbors

[eyenot]

" They were regular Buck Balto's, bringing us our biomedicines faster. Then they fired up the mass-driver and things quickly turned into a 'space opera'. "

Anyways here's more of the same (DARPA programs and funding) but from last year, presented by the CDI, for comparison's sake:

http://www.secureworldfoundation.org/siteadmin/images/files/file_203.pdf [secureworl...dation.org]

With Terminator Salvation coming out..

[TehCable]

"DARPA said it as embarked on an ambitious mission to create a new generation of computing systems - cognitive computers - to dramatically reduce military manpower and extend the capabilities of military personnel. DARPA's cognitive computing research is developing technologies that will enable computer systems to learn, reason and apply knowledge gained through experience, and respond intelligently to new and unforeseen events." ...These people do watch movies, right?

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[selven]

Can we please stop with the "computers taking over the world" paranoia? There will be bugs but humans are just as bugged, and the same checks and balances that work against humans will work against machine decision-makers. Lastly, there is always an off switch.

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[siloko]

DARPA's cognitive computing research is developing technologies that will enable computer systems to learn, reason and apply knowledge gained through experience, and respond intelligently to new and unforeseen events

So, like, humans, right? I had to write it like that because my grammar parsing algorithm is buggy as hell which unfortunatley screwed this years Turing test. Next year I'm gonna nail the mothe *CLICK*

Your comment strikes me as ironic

[fructose]

Ahh, the irony. Here you are, posting a comment on the direct derivative of something 'shiny' that DARPA (then just ARPA) ponied up the money for. Ever hear of ARPANET [wikipedia.org]?

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[rbrausse]

it isn't fair to confuse AC's with facts - so just ignore the arpanet and blame the French [wikipedia.org] for all the cheesy stuff in the tubes, what do you think?

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[Anonymous Coward]

I'm glad we as taxpayers paying for all this 'shiney' stuff has a say-so in it. This black budget is well accounted for i'm sure.

Oh wait we don't. We don't have a say so in anything our military does. I love our tyranical overlords who shit our taxpayer funds away.

It's ironic you're complaining about DARPA on the Internet.

Since that started as a DARPA project.

When do we get a new DARPA director?

[Reality Master 201]

After Tether departed in February (good riddance), DARPA's had just an acting director with no major changes to policy. I know I'd like to see someone appointed, preferably with a real scientific research background.

If nothing else, can we get rid of the stupid GNG targets?

FUD

[Plekto]

This is a typical thig for governments(and especially ours) to do. They give out just enough information to make would be terrorists worry what they are up to but hide the real specifics.

A good example of this is that Future Weapons show. "Look at these insanely lethal last-generation weapons we already had..."

Usually FUD is a bad thing, but not always.