Computers To Help Navy Recruit Unmanned Systems Operators

Can a video game help the U.S. Navy find future operators for its remotely operated, unmanned vehicles (UxV), popularly called drones?

To find out, the Naval Aerospace Medical Institute and Adaptive Immersion Technologies, a software company, are developing a computer game to identify individuals with the right skills to be UxV operators. The project, sponsored by the Office of Naval Research (ONR), is called StealthAdapt.

“The Navy currently doesn’t have a test like this to predict who might excel as UxV operators,” said Lt. Cmdr. Peter Walker, a program officer in ONR’s Warfighter Performance Department. “This fast-paced, realistic computer simulation of UxV missions could be an effective recruitment tool.”

Since the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq began, UxV have played ever-larger roles in intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, and other missions. Consequently, there’s an increasing need for well-trained UxV operators.

In recent years, the Air Force established its own formal screening process for remotely piloted aircraft operators, and the Marine Corps designated an unmanned aviation systems (UAS) career path for its ranks.

The Navy, however, doesn’t have an official selection and training pipeline specifically for its UxV operators, who face challenges unique to the service. For UAS duty, the Navy has taken aviators who already earned their wings; provided on-the-job, UAS-specific training; and placed them in temporary positions.

However, this presents challenges. It’s costly and time-consuming to add more training hours, and it takes aviators away from their manned aircraft duties. Finally, the cognitive skills needed for successful manned aviation can vary from those needed for unmanned operators.

StealthAdapt is designed to address this issue. It consists of a cognitive test, personality assessment and biographical history assessment. The cognitive exam actually is the game-based component of the system and takes the form of a search-and-rescue mission. Each player’s assignment is to rescue as many stranded friendly forces as possible, within a pre-set time limit, while avoiding fire from hostile forces.

If that’s not stressful enough, players must simultaneously monitor chat-based communications, make sure they have enough fuel and battery power to complete missions, memorize and enter authentication codes required for safe rescue of friendlies, decode encrypted information and maintain situational awareness.

“We’re trying to see how well players respond under pressure, which is critical for success as an unmanned operator,” said Dr. Phillip Mangos, president and chief scientist at Adaptive Immersion Technologies. “We’re looking for attention to detail, the ability to multitask and prioritize, and a talent for strategic planning—thinking 10 moves ahead of your adversary.”

To maintain this pressure, players complete multiple 5- to 10-minute missions in an hour. Each scenario changes, with different weather, terrain, number of friendlies and hostiles, and potential communication breakdowns.

After finishing the game portion, participants answer questions focusing on personality and biographical history. Mangos’ team then crunches this data with game-performance metrics to create a comprehensive operator evaluation.

Last year, over 400 civilian and military volunteers participated as StealthAdapt research subjects at various Navy and Air Force training centers. Mangos and his research team currently are reviewing the results and designing an updated system for validation by prospective Navy and Air Force unmanned operators. It will be ready for fleet implementation this year.

Mangos envisions StealthAdapt serving as a stand-alone testing and recruitment tool, or as part of a larger screening process such as the Selection for UAS Personnel, also known as SUPer. SUPer is an ONR-sponsored series of specialized tests that assesses cognitive abilities and personality traits of aspiring UxV operators.

Warren Duffie Jr. is a contractor for ONR Corporate Strategic Communications.

Hezbollah Creates New Computer Game Called 'Holy Defense'

"Holy Defense” is not your average computer game.

Instead of defending the US from invasion or some other democratic cause, the heroic character in this game is a Hezbollah fighter defending Shi’ites from Islamic State.

In an age when terrorist groups are getting more and more tech savvy, Hezbollah has developed a 3-D computer game to capture the minds of its youth, while showing them a good time.

According to a report by IDC Herzliya’s International Institute for Counterterrorism’s Jihad Monitoring Group, which was obtained exclusively by The Jerusalem Post, the game was launched on February 9.

It is designed for children and teenagers to stand in as a Hezbollah fighter and relive real-life battles that occurred in Syria and Lebanon against ISIS.

Like any solid computer game, it consists of multiple levels, which include a diverse range of tasks that players must perform.

Instead of Super Mario rescuing Princess Toadstool from the monstrous Bowser and his evil army of Koopa Troopas, players must defend the grave of Zaynab, a Shi’ite holy site in Damascus, against ISIS. They need to purge areas of ISIS fighters in order to stop the firing of rockets.

Another level requires assassinating a senior ISIS commander responsible for the transfer of suicide bombers to Lebanon.

Instead of stopping Mortal Kombat X’s villains Shinnok and Quan Chi and their army of undead revenants, the climactic level, “The Battle for the Homeland,” is about defending Baalbek, a Hezbollah stronghold in Lebanon, said the report, authored by Dr. Michael Barak.

A fascinating spin that corresponds less to the real-life narrative is an assignment focused on freeing kidnapped civilians held by ISIS.

In reality, most of Hezbollah’s combat against ISIS had nothing to do with saving kidnapped civilians, but, rather, took place in Syria and was carried out to prop up the Assad regime.

The Assad regime started to lose control of areas in 2011, after it started to barrel-bomb and otherwise attack its own Sunni civilian population.

Hezbollah has not intervened to protect Syrian noncombatants from the Assad regime.

All of this is part of the only slightly veiled true brainwashing focus of the game.

IN ITS INTRODUCTION, “Holy Defense” states: “The game is not merely a game but, rather, a story that seeks to document one of the sacred stages of defense against the expansion of takfiri elements [referring to Islamic State supporters as apostates from Islam] and against the American-Zionist plan. It is intended to document the many victims who fell in battle.”

“Computer games,” the report said, “are an inseparable part of Hezbollah’s propaganda campaign, as well as of... Hamas and Islamic State.”

Hezbollah seeks “to convey a message to the youth about the threats facing their community and the enemies against whom they must fight... to foster their identification with the organization’s goals” and to present “the organization as a defender of the community.”

Kids’ enjoyment of the game amplifies the messages and engenders a sense of belonging.

One of the insidious goals of the game is to lay the groundwork for recruiting the younger generation.

Hezbollah hopes to convince young Shi’ites in Lebanon and elsewhere that it is “the spearhead in defending the Shi’ite community in Lebanon and holy Shia sites in Syria.”

According to Hezbollah, the West is “constantly working to blur the cultural and religious identity of Muslim youth... such as through encrypted chat programs, social networks and games that seek to ‘destroy our values and cause us to ignore our main problems.’” This game is its response to those concerns.

According to Lebanese researcher Badia Salman, the game “also serves as a tool to justify Hezbollah’s activity in Syria after receiving a wave of criticism, both in the Shi’ite community in Lebanon and abroad, for its involvement in the Syrian civil war.”

Hezbollah previously published computerized war games about fighting the IDF after Israeli forces withdrew from Lebanon in 2000 and after the 2006 Second Lebanon War.

To market the new game, Hezbollah posted video clips on the subject and uploaded them to YouTube, Twitter and Facebook and even published a dedicated website for the game.

Hezbollah’s gaming fans can install the game on computers and mobile phones or buy it on a $5 disc through two Hezbollah distribution centers.

Playing This Old School Computer Game Can Make You Healthier

Whether it’s reading a trashy gossip mag or watching a YouTuber’s vlog about getting their nails done, every now and again we all need to escape from our own lives by becoming absorbed in someone else’s. Yes, it can feel like you’re wasting your life away, but God, it’s therapeutic! And if you ask us, there’s no better way to do that than with The Sims. The life simulation computer game (which turned 18 last month. Feel old yet?) was — and is — the ultimate way to disengage from real life. For those of you who actually spent your time outdoors growing up, the game essentially allows you to play God by creating an alternate universe with families and houses (PS. if you weren’t just creating your friends, family, mortal enemies and crushes, you were playing it wrong).

It all sounds a little unhealthy, right? But according to new research, it’s actually quite the opposite! New research has concluded that escaping with a virtual reality computer game can actually make you healthier, happier and more creative in real life.

The Sims can allow a person to escape social normality, its pressures and chronic stresses that are so prevalent in the real world, it allows the gamer to create a perfect reality in which they play the main character and have full control over the outcome. It is important to remember that immersing yourself in your imagination periodically is actually a very positive form of escapism and is considered important for our brain functions as it can expand our creativity. It allows the gamer to express a part of their personality that they may not have known if they hadn’t played. Albert Einstein once said ‘creativity is intelligence having fun’.

Our consciousness is very adaptable and allows us to create an opening to different paradigms of reality every time we focus on alternate versions of life through our thoughts. With the assistance of life simulation games such as The Sims, we can enhance our inner experience. Without escapism, we would simply burn out. It’s the main reason why we dream at night when we sleep as it’s our minds way of disengaging from the state of conscious living.”— Psychoanalyst Steve McKeown via UNILAD

The Sims is just the beginning of the virtual reality movement which is about to transform our lives as we know it. Obviously, it’s possible to overdo it with tools that allow you to escape from everyday life (especially if you’re under a lot of stress) and this isn’t a positive thing. McKeown says: “The more we escape the real world and spend more time in a world of fantasy the less we engage in actual social interaction.” So, while you shouldn’t feel guilty about indulging in games like The Sims every now and again, it’s important to ensure you’re getting enough IRL connection in your life.

IBM Builds Tiny Computer to Fight Supply Chain Fraud

On Tuesday, IBM unveiled a portfolio of "cryptographic anchors" that will serve as digital fingerprints to authenticate shipments. As a consignment makes its way from factory to ship to consumer, the anchor would create a verifiable blockchain record of the product's origins, contents and whereabouts. The company says that these technologies could cut the multi-billion-dollar problem of fraudulent goods in half.

"Almost everything has been copied," says Andreas Kind, manager of industry platforms and blockchain at IBM Research. "The total value of counterfiet goods was estimated in 2015 to be $1.8 trillion dollars."

As a leading example, Kind says, in certain parts of the world, 40 percent of the parts on the automotive aftermarket are actually fake. The modern world's long, trans-border supply chains contribute to this problem, making it hard to verify the origin and authenticity of goods.

In addition to online, secure cryptographic ledgers for business records and transactions, he said, "the trust has to reach into the physical world." Crypto anchors are designed to make this possible - to link cryptographic record systems with real objects in a manner that cannot be faked. The anchors (which could take many forms, from tiny computers to printed codes) would be embedded in the product and are designed to be un-clonable.

IBM says that the first of these "fingerprint" systems could be made available to clients in the next 18 months. Within the next five years, it hopes that technological advances could take many more of them to commercialization.

World's smallest computer

Among other "crypto anchor" products, IBM unveiled what might be the world's smallest computer, a chip tinier than a coarse grain of salt and and packing the power of a 1990s-era x86 processor. (The Verge notes that this would be just enough to run the vintage computer game Doom). It is powered by a tiny, integral solar panel and communicates with other devices by means of a single LED communications unit.

The device is intended to be embedded in products or packaging to serve as a tracker during shipment. IBM expects that it will cost less than 10 cents to manufacture each chip. "They’ll be used in tandem with blockchain’s distributed ledger technology to ensure an object’s authenticity from its point of origin to when it reaches the hands of the customer," said IBM's SVP of hybrid cloud, Arvind Krishna.

NVIDIA Achieves the Holy Grail of Computer Gaming Graphics

On Monday at the Game Developers Conference 2018, NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) announced RTX, a ray-tracing technology for real-time rendering, which will enable developers to achieve cinematic-quality in their video games. The graphics processing unit (GPU) specialist also announced its partnership with Microsoft for DirectX Raytracing.

This is a huge achievement -- and yet another reason to buy NVIDIA stock -- as ray tracing in real time has long been considered the Holy Grail among the computer gaming industry.

Here's what you should know.

NVIDIA RTX and the Microsoft partnership

NVIDIA RTX consists of a scalable ray-tracing technology running on Volta, NVIDIA's newest GPU architecture. The company partnered with Microsoft to enable full RTX support for applications that use Microsoft's new DirectX Raytracing (DXR) API, an industry-standard platform. NVIDIA's GameWorks software development kit (SDK) will add a ray-tracing denoiser module, enabling developers to take advantage of the new real-time rendering capabilities.

Ray tracing is a method for producing visual images within 3D computer graphics environments with more realism than traditional rendering techniques. The technology enables the production of lifelike lighting, reflections, shadows, and such. Ray tracing has been used for many years to pre-render scenes in movies. But until now, it's been "too computationally demanding to be practical for real-time, interactive gaming," according to NVIDIA.

Volta changed that. The GPU architecture, which launched last year in select products, such as NVIDIA's Tesla GPUs for data center, is much more powerful than predecessor Pascal. It allows ray tracing to tackle the massive computational loads associated with real-time rendering. Along with its advances in GPU architectures, NVIDIA also credited its progress in computer graphics algorithms for enabling it to develop RTX, a technology it's been working on for 10 years.

RTX should rev up NVIDIA's already strong gaming-related growth

NVIDIA stands to profit from its RTX technology as game developers adopt the technology to increase the realism of their video games. Higher-quality games, in turn, should rev up the already booming gaming market. Game market researcher Newzoo forecasts that the global video-game market generated revenue of $16.1 billion in 2017, up 10.7% from 2016, and projects that it will hit $143.5 billion by 2020, which translates to a 7.3% compound annual growth rate (CAGR). Moreover, there's good reason to believe that growth will exceed this estimate, as Newzoo significantly revised upwards its 2017 forecast near the end of the year. 

NVIDIA has been profiting handsomely from gaming's growth. In its fiscal-year 2018, the company's gaming market platform -- which sells GeForce graphics cards to PC gamers -- generated revenue of $5.5 billion, a 36% jump from the prior year, and accounting for 57% of its total revenue of $9.7 billion. The company's professional visualization platform also benefits from the growth in gaming, as this business sells Quadro GPUs to game developers, among others. In fiscal 2018, this platform's revenue grew 12% to $934 million, comprising nearly 19% of total revenue.

Management has said that gaming's main growth drivers include the rising popularity of esports, the increasing quality of video-game content, the sharing of game experiences on social media, and faster internet connections around the globe.

Something big just happened

I don't know about you, but I always pay attention when one of the best growth investors in the world gives me a stock tip. Motley Fool co-founder David Gardner and his brother, Motley Fool CEO Tom Gardner, just revealed two brand new stock recommendations. Together, they've tripled the stock market's return over the last 13 years.* And while timing isn't everything, the history of Tom and David's stock picks shows that it pays to get in early on their ideas.