There are a total of seven challenges on which they are calling for solutions:

1. Plan and execute approach and regress routes within both urban and wilderness terrain, and without preloaded maps or terrain models
2. Communicate with and facilitate communications between patients and human medics
3. Execute command, control, and coordination of individual robots, robot teams, and medical payloads
4. Perform remote/stand-off initial casualty assessment to iidentify injuries sufficient to prevent further injury during robotic casualty extraction
5. Lift, move, drag, tow, or otherwise effect recovery of patients in any of numerous body positions from hazardous environments in any terrain to safe locations
6. Provide closed loop or semi-autonomous casualty monitoring and enroute care sufficient to mitigate risk associated with “abandonment” concerns during unattended CASEVAC (casualty extraction and evacuation – ed.)
7. Plan and conduct recovery from errors or the unexpected

The posting also notes that the Army has been working on research in this area, but is having particular trouble solving the issue of safely picking up wounded soldiers for transport (number five). From the information in the posting, as well as the added questions and answers, any proposals that could come up with a solution to this particular issue would have the best chance at a positive evaluation.

(Via New Scientist)

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Do you fear that one day you may be required to receive a microchip implant? Perhaps you’re worried that this may violate your privacy by allowing your movements or behavior to be tracked. Or, perhaps you’re just worried that microchips are the “mark of the beast” from the Bible’s Book of Revelation. No, seriously:

Presumably most of the 88 legislators who voted in favor of the bill did so because of privacy concerns (just nine voted nay, and there was one abstention). Virginia also does not stand alone in taking a dim view of forced microchip implants — several states such as Wisconsin and Georgia have also approved similar bans.

But the bill also took on religious overtones due a belief shared by some fundamentalist Christians that microchips may represent the marks described in the Book of Revelation. It’s a view supported by Mark Cole, the Virginia delegate who sponsored the bill.

Despite what is, in my opinion, a dubious rationale for introducing this bill, any law that protects the civil rights of individuals is a good one. All’s well that ends well, no?