Ongoing Research Excerpts from DARPA’s Strategic Plan

DARPA (The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) recently released a 50+ page strategic plan highlighting some of the most advance research projects it is currently undertaking.  On page 9, section 2.6, DARPA outlines a “short list” of ongoing research.  We list the highlights here.

  1. High Energy Liquid Laser Area Defense System – You heard it here.  These are small high power laser weapons, i.e. weapons that shoot energy beams at the speed of light.  That’s fast.
  2. High Productivity Computing Systems – a.k.a. Super computers a.k.a. SKYNET from the Terminator mythos.
  3. Machine Learning – Cognitive machines.  Hmmm.  Again, we’ll reference SKYNET and Terminator.
  4. Neuroscience – In specific, projects that’ll create brain-machine interfaces.  Is this putting us one step closer to The Matrix?
  5. Real-Time Accurate Language TranslationTower of Babel my ass.
  6. Space, here we come.

Scary, but real, stuff.  You can find the full report here.

Which one of these research projects would you most like to see come to fruition?

DARPA Launches All Seeing Eye Into Stratosphere

Another step towards floating cities or Big Brother?  You decide.

DARPA is moving project ISIS into its demonstration phase.  ISIS (Integrated Sensor Is Structure) is a military project with goals to launch an autonomous statospheric-based airship equipped with supercharged sensors for surveillance.  The lightweight structure will hover high above earth for years and be capable of tracking objects as small as a child from up to 300 km away.

isis

But, the idea of hovering surveillance structures troubles privacy groups like the Anti-Satellite SympathizersA.S.S. founder and president Neil Kaminskigee said the following: “It’s just one more step towards a totalitarian police state, in which every square inch of earth has a dedicated ‘surveillance camera’ to watch over citizens.”

Others see this as another step towards floating airbases and cities.  Population control organizations have promoted the idea of permanent, stratosphere based structures to help alleviate overcrowding on the surface of our planet.

Read the press release from DARPA here.