The Military Is About To Get New Augmented Reality Spy Glasses 58
schwit1 writes in with this story about some interesting new eyewear purchased by the Defense Department. Getting secret information to specific people, like the location of the nearest nuclear power plant, in a way that doesn't draw attention from outside is a classic spy problem. Another one is giving agents the ability to match names to faces in the real world, at blackjack tables and fancy soirees and other places spies frequent. The Defense Department is buying some new spy specs to give spooks in the field an intelligence edge over everybody else. The glasses, called simply the X6, are from San Francisco-based Osterhout Design Group. They look like the lovechild of Google Glass and the Oculus Rift, providing more information to the wearer than the small window on Google's much-maligned headset but not obstructing vision like the Oculus Rift. (Admittedly, for spy glasses, they lack a certain subtlety.)
Spy glasses? (Score:5, Insightful)
Augmented reality glasses sound awesome, and these look much more interesting than Google Glass, but I'm not sure spies are the market here.
From the article: "Admittedly, for spy glasses, they lack a certain subtlety." A bit of an understatement, I'd say.
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Modding (Score:1)
As stated by TFA:
They look like the lovechild of Google Glass and the Oculus Rift, providing more information to the wearer than the small window on Google's much-maligned headset but not obstructing vision like the Oculus Rift. ( Admittedly, for spy glasses, they lack a certain subtlety )
If the military can do something like that, so can we
After all, this is what modding is all about
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Don't bother with him, he's a troll anyways. Everyone knows everything is bigger in Texas and Obama Care will pay for the surgery if his life story is true.
BTW, how to you ask someone if they are from Texas? You don't, you listen for a short time and they will just tell you. Or you can look him up on these glasses.
Spy glasses? (Score:1)
Yeah, these stand out waaaay too much for undercover work. They might have some use, e.g., for communication within someone's security detail or something like that, but I don't think you could wear something like this and fail to attract attention. And that seems like exactly the sort of thing spies want to *avoid* ...
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I'm not sure spies would avoid this. These appear to be glasses I would actually not mind wearing. Outside of a brick on the side, they look like sunglasses with a safety lens over them. But they actually resemble a pair of glasses unlike Google's Glass.
Anyways, with a sufficient population having something similar, they could actually blend into the population with them.
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These appear to be glasses I would actually not mind wearing.
Actually, I was expecting them to look a lot worse . . . when I looked at the picture, they don't seem too far different from the high-end fancy sport sunglasses that I have seen in stores. The ones where you can clip on multiple filters, and stuff.
I think that they look better than Google Glasses, because they don't have that Colonel Klink or Borg monocle look. I do a lot of riding on trains, and these look like they would be perfect for me, when I want to zone out.
They would also look less menacing th
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I think the idea behind the technological fix behind everything stems from trying to get more out of less people. Of course there are ares stuff like this might be more than helpful. But on the whole i think you are right.
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Just move as much hardware as possible into pocket or a humongous pair of earphones, make them as futuristic/80's/freaky/conspicuous as you can, accessorize with a cap and a track-suit(UK) or a beard plus silly and/or 'ironic' t-shirt(US) and
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Heh. For our military this seems very counterintuitive. AFAICT the push in recent years has been toward anything that reduces unnecessary cognitive loading in heated situations, and frees up their tactical senses (eyes & ears) generally. At my day-job a recent project was a tactile display vest specifically to replace voice and hand-arm signaling, keeping soldiers' eyes and ears free for other matters. Basically a dense array of vibrotactile drivers (like what makes your phone buzz) that can display mes
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These look awesome! I would so be lining up for these. Not to mention they specifically mention my killer app for wearing glasses - the face recognition!
I've played with Google Glass a few times and my complaint has always been the screen was too small and it should work as an overlay. If these did that!
Queue glasshole hatred now.
Spy glasses? (Score:1)
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I see the next evolution as such devices being issued to police and local military forces operating in the US. They can and likely will be used to issue orders and directives about targets further disabling human choice and decision making. You may have already heard about the "zero hesitaiton targets" being used in police and other government training. It is surprisingly hard to overcome humanity and morality in government employees, but they are working VERY hard to overcome it and rather successfully
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To add clarity to the topic, I see the change in tactics and tactical advantage as extremely disturbing.
The shift is from combat and other conflict engagement to robotic herd management where machines are used to cull the herds of human resources out there.
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Always down with a They Live reference.
more toys... (Score:2)
more toys at taxpayer expense...
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GPS, Penicillin, transistors, microchips, nuclear power, autonomous systems, arpanet(internet), communication systems, advanced optics, radar. Hopefully there will be plenty more toys. Now shut your mouth and go pay your taxes. :)
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most of the things you list are due to warfare, not having fun
Woosh (Score:3)
Really? The whole point of the GP post was that nearly all of the technological underpinnings of our modern, leisure-infested lifestyle are the result of governmental (and much of it military) research. I hate war as much as the next liberal, but it seems that the efforts of short-sighted humans are focused by the desire to be able to kill as many people as possible as easily as possible. Without it, we'd still be monkeys. Now if we could just quit the actual killing of people we'd be making some progress
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Yeah nice false dilemma there. Just because some good comes of it at times does not mean we should just accept the status quo of rising taxes, rising inflation, and diminishing returns. On the flip side we have:
1. bio warfare
2. nuclear weapons
3. autonomous robot weapons
4. electronic surveillance
5. speeding fines that have nothing to do with safety
6. e-waste
Now shut up and go reread the bill of rights.
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Yeah nice false dilemma there. Just because some good comes of it at times does not mean we should just accept the status quo of rising taxes, rising inflation, and diminishing returns.
Only, we don't have rising taxes. Right now inflation is at or below what the Fed generally goes for. I don't even know what you mean with dimishing returns. And none of these is strongly related with military or intelligence R&D.
On the flip side we have:
1. bio warfare 2. nuclear weapons 3. autonomous robot weapons 4. electronic surveillance 5. speeding fines that have nothing to do with safety 6. e-waste
Now shut up and go reread the bill of rights.
Humans have misused almost every scientific and technological advance. They are short-sighted, greedy, and oppress their fellow humans. None of this is a surprise. However, things like the 'toy' that the OP complained about, and the list of negatives that you give, are no
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"The name is Blond... James Blond: Russia set to expel US 'spy' caught wearing a shaggy wig as he offered millions to agent to switch sides" (15 May 2013)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new... [dailymail.co.uk]
"Red-handed? Russia ‘catches CIA spy on Moscow recruitment mission’" (14 May 2013)
http://www.independent.co.uk/n... [independent.co.uk]
Giving your spies even more complex equipment might just make for even more photogenic press reports.
Keep the spying face to face with simple items any loc
location of nearest nuke power plant? (Score:4, Interesting)
now that is funny, even a basic non-smart net10 phone with primative browser can pull up that info, it's quite public. Information about people and resources moving in and out of one might be better example of something that might be transmitted
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:normally id be all for this. (Score:5, Insightful)
1984 and Brave New World were never intended to be user manuals
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1984 and Brave New World were never intended to be user manuals
Of course not. These are developer manuals. It has been deprecated in Brave New World, but Fahrenheit 451 has instructions on how to proceed when users begin reading the wrong literature.
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if this were an education project or something i could have at my library id think this is awesome, but we spend more on defense than the next 4 largest spending countries combined. we're constantly sold on the idea that america is broke, so broke that an entire party of the government often times refuses to increase our debt limit. nearly every american highway is riddled with potholes, highschool kids have to pay a portion of their textbooks in many cases, and the entire city of detroit is about to cut off water service to a quarter of its population. The only thing that ever seems to happen in america is war. we dont have the cash to keep street lights on anymore, but we sure as shit have cash to burn for training some syrian rebels. it didnt work the first or second time, but we sent troops back to iraq for a third round of 'father knows best' diplomacy by the gun, and now we have augmented reality for the troops?
There is unquestionably a lot of wasteful military spending, but complete disengagement isn't necessarily the answer. If Obama had moved to support the Syrian moderates earlier- instead of just saying he'd support them and doing fuck-all- then perhaps the Syrian extremists wouldn't have taken over a third of Iraq. If Obama had negotiated to keep on troops in Iraq, perhaps the country wouldn't have fallen apart so quickly. If Obama hadn't completely walked away from Iraq, then maybe Maliki wouldn't have push
Snow Crash (Score:1)
Reminds me of Snow Crash:
Handspring 2.0 (Score:3)
This is a solution in search of a problem.
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Something has to be able to get past layers of Tor, Panstsirs, Buk, S-300, Mig's, Foxhound's... will Russia really launch a few billion $ worth of upgraded cold war rockets and never catch the super stealthy f22?
Russia knows the f22 will always get past its layers of rocket networks.
Until then join and enjoy the sales to the US gov
How about soccer referees and augmented reality? (Score:2)
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For this we'd first have to abandon the dogma that the clock has to keep running at all costs.
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Yet stoppage time is added at the end...why not just stop the clock for penalties and injuries instead?
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Have you ever sat down with a stopwatch and checked just how long games actually are when you only count "pure" play time? You end up with about 20-25 minutes per half. Including injury time you're still at a laughable pittance of actually play time.
In other words, if they actually stopped the clock whenever the ball exits the play field, whenever a goal is scored, whenever foul play has to be handled... a game would not take those 1.5 hours it does now but would be closer to 3 hours.
And since I don't reall
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In huge tournaments like the currently running World Cup, with 30+ cameras pointing at the field with 20+ thereof pointing at wherever the ball happens to be, yes.
It won't work out for "normal" games.
Such a device would cost us a laugh (Score:2)
I mean, one of the best scenes [youtube.com] of Star Trek history would never have existed with such glasses that make it unnecessary to ask for directions.
Subtle? (Score:2)
"(Admittedly, for spy glasses, they lack a certain subtlety.)"
That's a bummer. The US military has been famous for decades because of their 'subtlety'.
the location of the nearest nuclear power plant (Score:3, Insightful)
They make ... (Score:2)
do your research folks (Score:2)
Hey, let's write a article with nothing but buzzwords:
Oculus Rift
Google Glass
Spy
San Francisco
WTF? These have nothing to do with the heavy/HD crappy (1080p not so good 1" away) Rift, Unusable [and 'jerk' label] Glass, Spies? This is DoD C4i not the CIA, and of course... all the geekdom in frisco (World revolves around Frisco... according to Silicon Valley).
These are glamified knock offs to the Epson Moverio. Right down to the snap-in tinted shades. Don't know what it is? Look it up. And you can buy them now