With the race on wearable computers at full speed, every organization, whether for profit or for government, have been putting out left and right their offerings to an awaiting public already awash in smartphones and other portable gadgets. Nowadays, you see people with Google Glass, looking at their smartwatches, or checking at their activity trackers, all connected to power and portable computers called the smartphones.

Even in military research, each branch of the military is putting out its own information-retrieving devices to put in the hands of servicemen and women. DARPA, the organization that brought to you the internet just recently unveiled their latest in their research during their DARPA Demo Day 2014. The ULTRA-Vis which is the output of the Urban Leader Tactical Response, Awareness and Visualization program is a heads-up display for immediate information overlay in front of the soldier without affecting his or her vision while on a mission.

Using Augmented Reality, the big eyepiece shows information to the soldier. The information is put on the eyepiece by the projector in the helmet which for many FPS video gamers would look familiar such as heading and the nearest friendly unit in the field. Other information will be presented in holographic icons such as enemies, vehicles and even aircraft that is not visible.

The display is adjustable using a knob in the helmet. Before heading out on mission you can then configure the settings to certain parameters that will only show the information load that you require. But once set, you cannot make adjustments during a mission.

The ULTRA-Vis is still in the prototyping stage as looking at the contraption and looks like a clunky device. Still, it's a already feat cramming a heads-up display in a smaller device whereas before these only seen in the big HUDs that fighter pilots are used to.  But if they can further reduce the size so as not to add an extra load to for a soldier especially for the head, then they will only need to how some commercial devices such as Google Glass or RECON Jet did theirs.