The next time you are groping your way to the light switch, think about investing in next-gen night vision technology. Although the market may be tight for a while: you’ll need impressive security clearance and a healthy bank account to get the gear. Noah Shachtman from Wired Magazine tours the ITT Corporation facility where they design and build military-grade gear that can peer further into the dark, with greater fidelity, and under darker conditions, than any civilian equipment. And he comes back with some pretty amazing photos.
The latest generation of ITT’s night-vision gear, issued to a relative handful of American forces, comes with thermal sensors inside; that allows troops to detect the heat from an insurgent sniper, even when he’s completely camouflaged. The generation after that — currently under development here — will send digital maps, mug shots and drone footage to that same night vision eyepiece. In other words, U.S. forces will be able to ambush, apprehend and identify suspected militants — without the target ever seeing what the hell just happened to him.
The work is sensitive enough that export of the equipment is strictly controlled, and reporters are not ordinarily allowed inside these two buildings.
