Where are the bad guys? The military has eyes and ears
everywhere these days, including drones large and tiny,
satellites, radar imaging, LIDAR, infrared, thermal and even the
enemy’s own cellphones. The problem is how to take all that
imaging and create a single picture of the environment. To that
end, DARPA and George Mason University in Arlington have created
the first Innovation House Project, which will put eight teams
together for eight weeks in a “crucible-style” living
environment to try to invent new ways of crunching the diverse
sensor info. The military’s research arm wants those units to
think way off-piste “without fear of failure” to dream up
solutions, and will have access to specialists and mentors from
the military and academia. Unlike DARPA’s usual challenges which
have a grand prize, all teams accepted to the project will
receive $30,000 in funding, but groups who go on to survive a
four week cut will get an additional $20K. Proposals will be
accepted up to July 31 (with no academic credent