The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) gets a ton of funding to develop the science and techological future of the military.
This is the agency responsible for GPS, the internet and stealth planes. They're the real deal.
We looked at their active projects to find the ones that might have massive civilian implications if they eventually produce real-world tech.
For this round, we focused on only their Defense Science Office and their Information Innovation Office, two of six DARPA branches.
Something to replace complicated and often useless internet passwords
The Active Authentication project seeks to render overly-complex internet login info obsolete.
As it stands, the difficult-to-remember passwords are easy to beat if you can find them, and offer no protection if the service is just left running.
DARPA is looking into having biometric validation with a key point; They want to be able to authenticate users without any additional hardware needed, so there's no need fo an iris scanner on every iPad.
The tech plays off of how each person uses the computer differently. It validates access based on how each individual user handles a mouse, types, makes contact with a touchpad and more. It's immensely intuitive tech.
Putty that works as well as casts for broken bones
The military contends with traumatic injury each and every day. One of the most difficult injuries to treat is a compound bone fracture which require long healing and rehabilitation times.
Amputations are far too common. The screws and plates and rods necessary to successfully treat the beaks can lead to further complications.
DARPA wants to make the way the military handles compound fractures far less medieval and far more space age. They're developing Fracture Putty which can be packed in and around a compound bone fracture and provide load bearing abilities in days.
The putty would be bone-like during the healing process but would gradually degrade as the normal bone heals.
A red-blood cell machine to make shortages a thing of the past
The most transfused blood product is red blood cells, which carry oxygen around the body. When soldiers are wounded, one of the most important things to accomplish medically is to bring the red blood cell count back to survivable levels.
Unfortunately, the difficulties of transporting all of that blood and keeping the supply up is a major challenge for the military — not to mention civilian — medical system.
DARPA's Blood Pharming program seeks to develop novel technologies to enable production of red blood cells that are ready to go on the spot.
The end goal is to use human cells to make an automated, mass produced blood machine of universal donor type cells.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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