The United States Air Force is working with Batman to create new tech for combat and search and rescue. It isn’t the real Dark knight, but it’s still cool.
The US Military has been finding ways to incorporate more and more mobile tech in efforts to both update and move away from clunky laptops. The pentagon recently purchased 7,000 Galaxy Note II devices from Samsung for use in their Nett Warrior System, which serves as a sort of tactical map and communications device.
The Air Force is now working on a similar initiative called “Batman.” Unfortunately the name is entirely unrelated to Caped Crusader vigilante billionaire ninjas, but it does involve the next coolest thing–Google Glass.
Batman, or, the “Battlefield Air Targeting Man-Aided (K)knowledge” (yeah, it’s a stretch) is intended to utilize both the camera and screen on Google Glass to provide additional visual perspective from ground troops to pilots for targeting purposes. It can also be used in reverse to provide live areal views from pilots to the troops on the ground during recon or search and rescue missions.
This is exactly the type of innovation Glass is designed for. Not necessarily military specific innovation, but Google Glass is just a platform. A sort of blank slate, and Google is relying on developers to create applications to take advantage of the tools Glass provides. The devices being used by the Air Force are in fact Google Glass Explorer edition devices, which were purchased by Air Force developers, just the same as the way explorers in the general public purchase Glass.
Many people have the perspective–likely because of some of the high tech spy gadgets in movies and TV–that the Government has access to far superior technology than the private sector, but the fact that the Air Force is developing for Google Glass instead of a proprietary system suggests otherwise. Of course, the military and organizations like the FBI, CIA, and NSA definitely have more resources to obtain high tech gadgets, much of the technology used is likely closely in line with what most people have access to.
The military does have a history of driving many technical innovations, though, so hopefully developments such as Batman will also drive the civilian applications of tools such as Google Glass forward as well.
Source: Pocket-Lint
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We spend hundreds of hours on board a variety of airplanes each year, most often en-route to a trade show or product launch event, but occasionally we have a rare opportunity to hop on board military aircraft, to test out unrelated products, or, even more unusually, to take a seat behind the yoke. Sadly that's not what we're doing today -- well, not exactly. We are taking a closer look at the F-35 fighter jet at Lockheed Martin's Fighter Demonstration Center just outside our nation's capital, but, being in the middle of a corporate complex, there's no actual Lightning II on hand. We were able to take a simulated ride, however -- this isn't your ordinary 4D sickness-inducing amusement park thrill. The F-35 is by far the most advanced Lockheed jet to date, with updated radar, all-internal weapons, improved tracking systems, 360-degree infrared coverage with a visor readout, and a full-stealth design, not to mention the incredibly capable glass cockpit powered by more than 9.3 million lines of software code, and an overall smoother experience for pilots that could end up spending shifts of 12 hours or longer in flight.
The F-35 has already seen plenty of field time in the US, with more than 500 flights already in 2012, and it's set to make its way to the UK armed forces next week and the Netherlands later this year, but while the aircraft is quite familiar to the pilots tasked with flying it, the public hasn't had an opportunity to experience Lockheed's latest airborne warrior. We flew a simulated mission within a grounded duplicate of the flyable F-35 cockpit, and the capabilities and improvements are quite clear -- you definitely don't want to encounter an F-35 from a previous-generation aircraft. The dual 8 x 10-inch touch-enabled displays combine to give you 8 x 20 inches of real estate, with dedicated modules for the weapons systems, targeting, and navigation easily accessible -- you can also move them to different panels depending on your current objective. A pair of joysticks at the left and right side provide direct access, letting you move a cursor to track enemy crafts or ground-based targets as well, and a very slick heads-up-display mounted in the helmet provides infrared mapping and instrument readouts. Overall, it seems to be an incredibly powerful system. Unfortunately, the mock-up on display here isn't accessible to the public, but you can join us for a behind-the-scenes look just after the break.
Filed under: Displays, Misc. Gadgets, Transportation
Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II stealth fighter cockpit demonstrator hands-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Jul 2012 15:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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DARPA saw the battlefield potential in AR glasses ages ago, when even Sergey Brin was happy to wear regular Ray-Bans. It's now stepped up its investment, giving more cash to one of its research contractors -- a company called Innovega -- to produce prototype contact lenses that could make military wearable HUDs smaller and less conspicuous. Innovega's iOptik lenses don't actually include a display, but rather allow the human eye to focus on an image from a separate accessory that sits right up close to the eyeball. The lenses have different zones that give the wearer multiple areas of focus, so they can see the overlaid augmented reality HUD -- such as a feed from an overhead drone -- but also warlike events going on in the immediate environment. Judging from the video after the break, however, calling them plain 'bifocals' might be taboo.Continue reading DARPA realizes it needs contact lenses, opts for those nice AR tinted ones (video)
DARPA realizes it needs contact lenses, opts for those nice AR tinted ones (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 13 Apr 2012 05:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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