Rob Talbert, vlogging for Machinima.com, posts a YouTube review of Bungie Studios' new Xbox game, "Halo Reach." At about 1:32 on the video, Talbert says that his favorite new features in "HR" include new tools for the avatar warriors, including jet packs, active camo[uflage], armor that repels incoming fire, and a hologram, that lets the player "release a copy of yourself that enemies will shoot at." That is to say, a decoy.
OK, it's a game, but as we know, imagination has to precede creation. And some of these tech ideas have been floating around for decades, as the website Technovelgy , to name one, lovingly chronicles--or as any gamer knows.
So how close are we to developing such tools in real life--in real combat? If we could, it would save some lives.
I am sure that the Pentagon's DARPA and JIEDDO and other agencies have considered all these ideas at one time or another--and maybe it's hard at work on some or all of them--but maybe DARPA, JIEDDO, et al. needs some new funding, or a push.
The motto of JIEDDO is aut inveniam, aut faciam, words attributed to Hannibal: "I shall either find a way, or make one."
If the US defense establishment had few more Billy Mitchells, Leslie Groves, and Hyman Rickovers--or if it properly empowered those defense visionaries that we might already have on the job--we could surely turn some of these flights of fancy into practical defense systems.
So the question from our troops in the field is, "When?"
