

Darpa's Night Vision Contact Lenses - SEJeff
http://www.wired.com/2014/04/night-vision-contact-lenses/

======
themodelplumber
More Super Soldier stuff. I was reading in a book by a Green Beret who served
in Vietnam, where he mentioned a new type of grenade launcher they received
that had a faster rate of fire than the standard one. I thought, "oh this is
going to be exciting, he's leading up to something here" but what the author
lead up to was a description of the extreme strain on the guy who was lugging
the thing around through the hot jungle. First he begged to be allowed to bury
the extra grenades and then after doing that asked (IIRC) if he could just
leave the weapon behind--they were being pursued by Viet Cong. Ever since I
read that, I look at the Super Soldier stories in a different light. These
guys are alpha-testing stuff that could just as easily get them killed. Having
worn contacts I can only imagine the type of reaction this might get from
someone who has served in dusty or polluted areas.

Edit: Didn't mean to sound grouchy :D

~~~
MetaCosm
To be fair, the military did learn the weight / strain lesson fairly well in
the 50s and 60s. A lot of current research is to decrease "operating strain".
This includes like auto-adapting auditory / visual restrainers, exo-skeletons,
etc.

------
greenburger
The article never mentions DARPA. The research discussed was actually funded
by NSF, and the researchers appear to be thinking of broader applications than
night vision.

------
aet
I get a phishing alert on this site, why?

