New Model Army

"In 1996 I was unknown to this DARPA community," Starner said. "They didn't know anyone crazy enough to wear a computer all the time. This year, enough have seen me before, and I'm no longer such an oddity."

Starner sees military applications for all kinds of projects on which he and his students are working at Georgia Tech. His lab is working on 3D imaging and sensors that recognize hand gestures. He envisions soldiers and commanders knowing when another is pointing his weapon, as part of an overall monitoring system.

Lt. Gen. Paul Kern issues a challenge at a military technology conference in Dallas: Make an invincible U.S. Army by 2003.

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Four years ago, as a graduate student, he didn't inspire any DARPA interest. This time he hoped for a sliver of funding. "The question is, does the stuff I do match what DARPA wants?" he said. "I'm here to see what their vision of the future is."

DARPA's vision of the future is centered on technology, but it has to concentrate on people first. Lately it has had problems attracting people to the agency; the dot.com brain drain has depleted the defense contracting industry.

That's scary news for the defense department. DARPA has always been used as a security blanket to comfort national fears; it was established in 1958 as the first U.S. response to the Soviet launching of Sputnik. Today's bugaboos are the proliferation of biological and chemical weapons, friendly fire, attacks on our electronic infrastructure, and a public that will only tolerate zero-casualty combat.

The DARPA projects all work to assuage these fears, from unmanned tanks to electronic defense software to the production of genetically engineered vaccines.

Fernandez quoted General George Marshall, who had been asking for a modern military before the United States got involved in World War II: "'First we had the time but no money, now we have the money but no time,'" Fernandez said. "Well, now we have the money and the time. Apparently."