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Google Glass Can Pave The Way for The Tactical HUD

Gungho Cowboy

One piece of technology is getting the attention of many people now, and might just be the future of mobile computing and navigation is Google Glass. Now already released to developers for them to develop applications for the it, we assume that some from the defense and law enforcement circles are already looking into potential uses of this for tactical and crime fighting purposes.

Heads-Up-Display (HUD) technologies are getting smaller and smaller each day. Famously known to be used in fighter jets and fighter jet pilot helmets, now they are being used for industrial purposes where high tech troubleshooters call up data to be directly displayed into their glasses so there's no need to take eyes off a problem or discovery. Google Glass is not exactly a brand new technology, but it is the first attempt at doing more than what smartphones do nowadays --- an always on portable information, entertainment, navigation, and communications system that's displayed to the human eye through an eyewear gadget rather through a mobile phone.

Just watching one of the first videos of Google Glass makes me want to get one of these when its released for the masses to use. There are just three things that just stand in the way for me before this product consumes me as a "must have": a) Price (right now, the developer edition is US$1,500); b) Privacy (as Google gets more information about your life on another level apart from web and smartphones); and c) Looking ridiculous (as wearing Google Glass might make you look so anti-social with that contraption just like friends sending text messages to other people while in the company of other friends).:

Putting those aside, we don’t know if the military is interested in what can be done with Google Glass, especially when they want to equip with their soldiers with smartphones for tactical information. I suspect that DARPA will be very much interested with this and in fact the recent director of DARPA, Regina Dugan, actually moved to Google. The obvious benefit of Google glass for the soldiers in a combat situation and police answering a distress call is that information can always be retrieved and displayed instantly through their eyes without pulling out a mobile phone or tablet. Apart from the HUD, Google Glass also comes with communications as it's a phone and a camera. Soldiers can transmit real time intelligence and Police can record evidence or conversations with a subject being arrested or interrogated, so it's not a one-way information street unlike before where there's a big delay or "lag" in network parlance.  Include Augmented Reality (AR) and there are more possibilities for real time intelligence and quick tactical decisions.

HUD glasses will be future device for warfare, and it has already been envisioned in science fiction stories, movies and video games, especially Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon which gets more emphasized with the Future Soldier edition as shown in this Ghost Recon Alpha Movie:

What's in it for airsoft? Well, there is actually. If you still remember the BattleTac MilSim and GPS tracking device which is made for airsoft where apart from the use maps, it can also be used with Augmented Reality and it can just be ported to the Google Glass platform. Perhaps others existing airsoft apps created for mobile devices can also be used with it. Overlaying information can be great while at the same time having the shooter's eyes steady on the target and offers lesser distraction in the long run when users have adjusted to having a HUD glasses like Google Glass. Mission objectives are displayed to the airsoft player and imaginary physical things can be superposed via AR.

So the "Ghost Recon" HUD is already here in the form of the Google Glass. We just need a version that's made for ballistic impact protection. We know that after this, the demand will be about cloaking devices  but we need to take things one at a time.

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