No prize money for DARPA challenge???

[Alex]

I really hope this is just a rumor but I found this on Wired so I really don't think so.

Apparently, our good 'ol president decided to sign a defense spending law, which contains a section preventing the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency from awarding the $2.7 million prize money!! I know president Bush isn't the best president, but to do something like this is absurd! How is the United States supposed to advance their technologies and take the lead in robotics when the most highly advanced public challenge encouraging the growth in robotics gets handed something like this?

Hopefully, these competitors will be happy competing to win a shiny trophy and didn't really care much about the $2.7 mill...

Read the whole article here (http://www.wired.com/news/wireservice/0,71983-0.html?tw=rss.politics)

[wmccafferty]

This is a little old, but the good news is that the prize money was reinstated: http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=technologyNews&storyid=2006-11-03T221217Z_01_N03352260_RTRUKOC_0_US-ARMS-USA-CASH.xml

Billy

[Alex]

Awesome Billy:D Thanks for posting this! I have my hope back:cool:

I was so upset when I originally read the original article, that I lost a lot of hope for our country. As much as I hate to admit it, money really is a motivator for people/groups. The US is seriously behind when it comes to robotics technology, and when I read that the government took away the cash prizes for DARPA, all I thought about was how further behind our country will fall just because of that decision. Think of what sort of technology will come into fruition as a result of the DARPA challenges?

Of course people would still compete in DARPA, but think about how much time, research, development and parts (or in one word, money) go into building something like an autonomous Urban vehicle?