June 2008 - DARPA has been talking up the idea of threat-sensing binoculars for some time now, but it looks like it's now putting up a good chunk of cash to make 'em a reality, with Northrop Grumman announcing that it's snagged a $6.7 million contract to further develop its Human-aided Optical Recognition/Notification of Elusive Threats (or HORNET) system.

That'll use electro-encephalogram electrodes placed on a soldier's scalp to monitor their neural responses to the presence or absence of potential threats, which helps to train the system's algorithms and ultimately alert them to threats before their mind is actually able to process the information. The idea is that when you look at a far-off or partially obscured object without noticing it, your subconscious probably did notice it and tried, unsuccessfully, to identify it.

The EEG in these binoculars would pick up on that kind of subconscious activity and draw the wearer's attention to the object in question. The goal is that these binoculars would be able to pick up on any object anywhere in the wearer's field of view, where a person can only pick up on things that he focuses both his eyes and his attention on.

Of course, there's no indication as to when such a system might actually be put to use, and DARPA itself is still leaving itself a bit of wiggle room, with it only committing to the first 12-month phase of the project at the moment.

This delves into some very interesting territory: it would be an electronic device that uses human eyes to collect data, and even uses a human brain to partially process the data. Since it also passes its results back to the human providing the data and initial processing, it essentially adds a second processing loop in parallel to the wearer's visual system."

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