DARPA Officials Demo Technologies Under Development

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) gave a sneak preview Wednesday to an impressive collection of promise-to-change-the world projects—technology such as the High-Assurance Cyber Military Systems (HACMS), software built in from inception to negate security vulnerabilities to just about anything operated by a computer. And that means just about anything.

From keyless entry automobiles, to bomb bots, drones, power grids, home security systems, even refrigerators—the HACMS engineers are writing software to safeguard networked, embedded information technology systems from hackers and attackers, be they nation states, terrorists, criminals or malicious teenagers, says Program Manager Kathleen Fisher.

The HACMS was among about 100 demonstrations showcased at the Information Innovative Office’s (IO2) first “DARPA Demo Day” displayed in the Pentagon’s center courtyard—promising technology meant to solve national security challenges and issues brought about by “information revolution.”

Much of what comes from DARPA, founded in 1958, is later commercialized and changes people’s lives, from the invention of the Internet to GPS systems, and even Apple’s popular intelligent personal assistant and knowledge navigator now called Siri, says Dan Kaufman, director of IO2.

Other highlights included the next generation of search technologies called Memex, which can canvass the Internet for evasive information that could, for example, lead officials to fight human trafficking, or a computer system that can search hundreds of thousands of medical journals and papers in dozens of languages, analyze the information, regroup it and present findings in an effort to help find a cure for cancer.