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by James Robertson.
Original Post: Becoming more cyber
Feed Title: Cincom Smalltalk Blog - Smalltalk with Rants
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Feed Description: James Robertson comments on Cincom Smalltalk, the Smalltalk development community, and IT trends and issues in general.
This ComputerWorld story is interesting - looks like Sandia Labs is researching software/hardware systems that could cut through the "fog of war" - both combat type fog, and civilian crisis type fog:
So far, the research has been able to link various physiological responses to things like stress, fear, daydreaming and fatigue. Sandia scientists hope to create a central server that can integrate all of these readings from lightweight sensors worn on the body. Then they plan to use the software to help team leaders assign tasks to those who are most alert or to assist people in their decision-making based on analysis of their fellow team members' conditions.
For example, consider a team of air traffic controllers that's managing a major crisis with one or more airliners. As envisioned, MentorPal would assist the team leader by indicating that "Team Member A is growing increasingly excited" before that person reports what he is observing. That short period of advance notice may increase the team's decision-making speed enough to avert disaster.
Now, there's a problem with that - you have to take individuals and their varying reactions to stress into account. Still, this is an interesting idea. The good thing is, many of the people working on this seem to frecognize these pitfalls:
"This research can have merit, [but] a potential pitfall is that it can add to the fog of war by providing contradictory or confusing information," says Lt. Col. Ross Romeo, a division chief at the U.S. Army's 1st Information Operations Command.
John Pescatore, an analyst at Stamford, Conn.-based Gartner Inc. and a former analyst at the National Security Agency, is even less optimistic. "Abstracting that human element into a neural-network-based piece of software or using biometric inputs as important feeds is one of those areas I don't think will ever happen," he says. "I will believe we are within five years of that when FAA traffic controllers fly commercial airliners from their towers, and pilots serve the coffee on the planes."
Pescatore says if he ever sees "a soldier pointing a rifle at me, and he has an earpiece with a Sandia logo on it, I will run like hell and hide behind something bulletproof."
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