I thought these guys were supposed to be, y’know, smart?
MIT’s won a $50MM grant from the DoD to design high tech gear for the US Army’s “soldier of the future” program. Folks thought the concepts were right out of the comic books.
Well, the artwork was, at least. Uncredited. Uncompensated.
Unbelievable.
The illustration in question — a masked female soldier — appeared on page 13 of a grant proposal MIT submitted to the Pentagon to host the high-tech Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies.
When MIT won the grant, beating out other schools such as Cornell University, national news media used the image to illustrate the kinds of futuristic warrior gear that the institute hoped to develop.
“It was an innocent use,” MIT spokesman Ken Campbell said. “We didn’t know it was from anyone else’s artwork.”
Yeah, the artwork just magically appeared in your document, and you thought it was proposal elves or something. Sheesh.
Comparative illustrations here.
(via Anadandy)