DARPA Is About to Build IronMan

Popular Mechanics published an article today updating the progress of DARPA's Warrior Web program, many are calling it the Iron Man suit, do ill stick to that phrase for the rest of this piece. Currently they have just finished their "first phase" of development. Obviously this is still in its infancy, but researchers say that the rudimentary exoskeleton-type suit can already assist troops in carrying heavy loads of equipment on their backs.. up to 100 lbs! The process seems to be moving at snails pace, considering they haven't even been able to construct a suit that goes over the full body; but it also is pretty impractical at this point (considering Tony Stark's suit was built out of micro computers). A majority of the research is being done at a few universities around the U.S (including Harvard and Arizona State). The D.O.D has been issuing grants and competitions for researchers to build the best models.
 This sounds surprisingly like one technology we studied this entire semester THE INTERNET. Surprise surprise DARPA is at it again, building the coolest things in the wold, just for "defense." In my wildest dreams I imagine our troops fighting aliens in Tony Stark inspired suits, but that's neither here nor there. It is interesting to see how science fiction can influence real world actions or vice-verse.In "Images of Science and Technology in Literature" with Penino, we discussed themes like this a lot, like the humanoid robots in Blade Runner, or the cyber worlds in The Matrix, science fiction and real world developments have gone hand in hand.
 Looking at this from a "Computers and Society" point of view, I'll examine the values inherit in this technology. Obviously its DARPA related, so we know all the terrible motives potentially behind it. I also highly doubt this has any cyberlibertarian values either. If anything this could become the symbol for an oppressive police state like something from the Hunger Games. Maybe the suit can become something else entirely, lets say it is made public (and in an ideal world) everybody has the ability to fly! Or at least it will assist in everyday tasks, like carrying heavy objects (like the current prototype). In that sense, the iron man suit would have a lot of positive inherent values, sort of like the internet...until it becomes commercialized. Well that's my two cents on the possibilities on a Tony Stark iron-man suit, I hope you enjoyed it because it is my 7th and final blog for this class forever.