Distribution: General / non-confidential
It pleases Us to announce that the following experimental research programmes
will each receive £10,000,000 guaranteed and inflation adjusted anually for
three years:
Two-diode imaging (Dean, Salem, Chen)
Single-pixel cameras have been an area of research for two decades, and it has
been understood for even longer how to use a reverse-biased LED to measure
ambient light levels. Combining the two technologies with SCORPION STARE could
potentially allow 'STARE devices to be miniaturized into millimeter-scale
passive devices.
Deep Stare (Wu, Angelov, Soleymani)
Technology like Deep Convolutional Networks, AGAINs, and the like have made it
possible to create plausible images from archetypes. Deep Stare, if its
promise can be realized, will allow remote / non-line-of-sight deployment of
STARE technology against enemies of the state. All that is required is an
accurate image generating model, coupled with petascale iteration, to
neutralize a threat based on a description. Imagine that you can simply input
"a 25-year old caucasian male insurgent stands in front of a High street shop,
waiting for the right moment to unleash the demonic threads even now coiling in
his belly", and before he can act, he is turned into radioactive slag.
Stereo acoustic imaging (Toth, Ben-Amram, Toth)
It will happen to one woman out of four in her lifetime: that hoped-for
pregnancy converted to tragedy when her gynecologist explains that the embryo
is (the wrong kind of) nonhuman. Stereo acoustic imaging promises to allow
easy, outpatient treatment for our most precious resource, fertile females.
Civilian Applications
We also wish to announce funding of the following programmes to create civilian
applications for SCORPION STARE technology. Each programme will receive
£100,000 in the first year, with possible increase to £500,000 per year based
on progress. In exchange, the Crown is awarded 27% of eventual revenues, in
purpetuity.
- Chain-free "chainsaw"
- Single-use heating pads
- Assisted suicide VR Goggles
- Insect Control Cameras
- Artificial Tanning Beds
His Majesty would like to congratulate all surviving entrants for their
inventive grant proposals.