My experience from the armed forces is that cool new gear is always nice, but you should never become dependent on it because if it could fail in a battle environment, it's quite likely that it will.<p>Moreover, additional equipment requires more battery power which means more weight, something that troops already struggle with.<p>Another trap of fancy gear is that it could increase the perceived distance between you and the residents in the area you're supposed to operate in. Think of it, what would you think if somebody with a massive bullet-proof vest, invisible cloak, night-vision googles and a grenade launcher came walking by your house one night? Winning the hearts and minds of the people around you is critical for any operation, and if you walk around look like inspector gadget, it's easy to forget that the bling in the battle vest isn't your primary life insurance.
The last paragraph was the most interesting. It's like using ambient light to spot something, rather than shining a spotlight out into the field.<p>Makes me wonder if there are other ways to take advantage of this.
As a bonus, how many faces can you spot in the image at the top? I'm at 6 or maybe 7.<p>But seriously, these technologies are really interesting. The "shadow" of stealth bombers through standard cell waves is interesting. Eventually they may create a plane that emits white noise to cover up it's shadow.
I always wondered if the researchers ended up concluding that pixellized camo was the best simply as a result of their using digital hardware to run the experiments.<p>I mean, come on, <i>nothing</i> is pixellized like that in the wild.