( Wired ) -- No more will soldiers ' vision be limited to the socket-embedded spheres that God intended . The Pentagon now wants troops to see dangers lurking behind them in real time , and be able to tell if an object a kilometer away is a walking stick or an AK-47 . In a solicitation released today , Darpa , the Pentagon 's far-out research branch , unveiled the Soldier Centric Imaging via Computational Cameras effort , or SCENICC . Imagine a suite of cameras that digitally capture a kilometer-wide , 360-degree sphere , representing the image in 3-D onto a wearable eyepiece . You 'd be able to literally see all around you , including behind yourself , and zooming in at will , creating a `` stereoscopic/binocular system , simultaneously providing 10x zoom to both eyes . '' And you would do this all hands-free , apparently by barking out or pre-programming a command ( the solicitation leaves it up to a designer 's imagination ) to adjust focus . Then comes the Terminator-vision . Darpa wants the eyepiece to include `` high-resolution computer-enhanced imagery as well as task-specific non-image data products such as mission data overlays , threat warnings/alerts , targeting assistance , etc . '' Target identified : Sarah Connor ... The `` Full Sphere Awareness '' tool will provide soldiers with `` muzzle flash detection , '' `` projectile tracking '' and `` object recognition/labeling , '' basically pointing key information out to them . And an `` integrated weapon sighting '' function locks your gun on your target when acquired . That 's far beyond an app mounted on your rifle that keeps track of where your friendlies and enemies are . The imaging would n't just be limited to what any individual soldier sees . SCENICC envisions a `` networked optical sensing capability '' that fuses images taken from nodes worn by `` collections of soldiers and/or unmanned vehicles . '' The Warrior-Alpha drone overhead ? Its full-motion video and still images would be sent into your eyepiece . It also has to be ridiculously lightweight , weighing less than 700 grams for the entire system -- including a battery powerful enough to `` exceed 24 hours [ usage ] under normal conditions . '' That 's about a pound and a half , maximum . The Army 's experimental ensemble of wearable gadgets weighs about eight pounds . And it is to SCENICC what your Roomba is to the T-1000 . Here 's how far advanced SCENICC is compared to bleeding-edge imaging and networking capabilities that the Army is currently developing . Right now , the Army 's asking three different companies -- Raytheon , Rockwell Collins and General Dynamics -- to build a wearable platform of digital maps , computers and radios , networked with one another . Soldiers would have warzone maps beamed onto helmet-mounted eyepieces . The system , known as Nett Warrior , needs to weigh less than eight pounds , and it builds on a years-long and ultimately fruitless effort called Land Warrior . ( One of the problems with Land Warrior is it was heavy and cumbersome , owing in part to battery weight . ) The Army hopes to choose one of the Nett Warrior designs by March . By the time it 'll actually roll out Nett Warrior after testing , production and deployment -- a few years , optimistically -- SCENICC will already be hard at work on its replacement . Darpa wants a hands-free zooming function within two years of work on the contract . By year three , the computer-enhanced vision tool needs to be ready . Year four is for 360-degree vision . Then it 's on to development . The Army is generally hot for combat-ready smartphones to keep soldiers linked up with each other . And the buzz-generating tool for the soldier of the near future is mapping technology , delivered onto a smartphone or some other handheld mobile device , at least judging from this year 's Association of the U.S. Army confab . But all of these representation tools are two-dimensional , and require soldiers to look away from their patrols in order to use them . Textron 's SoldierEyes Common Operating Picture , for instance , lets soldiers see icons on a tablet-mounted map telling them where their friends , enemies and neutrals are . It ca n't put those icons onto a 3-D picture sent to a soldier 's eyes , let alone allow a 10x zoom for a kilo-wide 360-degree field of vision . Why would anyone use a map on a smartphone when they could have SCENICC ? Even with all the advances in digital imaging , it 'll be a tall order to put together 360-degree vision and 10x zoom and mapping software and integration with weapons systems and lightweight miniaturization and network connectivity . Darpa does n't really address how the system 's networked optics would work in low-bandwidth areas like , say , eastern Afghanistan ( though maybe drone-borne cell towers can help ) . Indeed , judging from the solicitation , while SCENICC is supposed to be networked , it does n't seem to have any communications requirements for soldiers to talk through what their optics are sharing with each other . Maybe there 's a role for those new soldier smartphones after all . Subscribe to WIRED magazine for less than $ 1 an issue and get a FREE GIFT ! Click here ! Copyright 2010 Wired.com .
The Pentagon 's Darpa unit unveiled a camera system that can project a 3-D image . Score: 7 An `` integrated weapon sighting '' function locks your gun on your target when acquired .