Pay $1 million for a wearable power supply

According to Network World, the DoD wants to cut down on the weight that a typical soldier going out for a four-day mission has to carry. It claimed a soldier is having to carry 40 pounds of batteries and rechargers in his pack. The US military use battery packs to run their radios, night-vision devices, global positioning systems and other combat gear.

They want to get this down to about eight pounds and the DoD is looking to mimic the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency which has experienced successes using contests to attract competitors.

The competition is open to everyone, but the lead developer on the project must be American. Goodness knows why, since the rest of the team can be foreigners we guess it is just so that the DoD can claim it is an American invention.

If the same standards were applied to inventions of yesteryear the US would never have got the radio, radar, the telephone, computer or the jet engine.

More here. µ