03-19-2008, 08:56 AM
Quote:DARPA is constantly working on strange ideas and they have plenty of things in the works.
I worked in the lab of a bio-engineering professor who had a few really cooky contracts from the Department of Defense (and know several individuals who still work for him).
His first contract was to develop a chip that could be implanted in the brain of a human that would allow said individual to... *drum roll*... remotely control an army of robots. Note that the ability to control large numbers of robots (100+) was specifically stated in the initial design doc. Weird stuff. They never got past the first stage of trying to get a rat to control the movement of a single robot before the funding got cut. Interesting enough, the PhD/grad students working on the project said the toughest aspect was just trying to get the rat to care about moving a robot around doing mundane tasks in the first place. lol:blush:
Of course he immediately got a second DoD contract because the Navy wanted to be able to remotely control sharks for some reason. Literally they wanted to be able to place some implants in a living shark, seal it up and then swim the shark around like a video game via a joystick. Seriously. That project was still going last I heard.
The DoD was throwing tens of millions of dollars at this guy and his rampant imagination.
--Mith
I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.
Jack London
I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.
Jack London