Bionic Body Armor, for Real.

Slashdot.com always has some interesting news on it. A recent tidbit linked to an article on bullet-dodging body-armor. No joke. IBM filed for a patent on it. Seems that it will work primarily on long range fire, so its usefulness would be for high profile people, like presidents. The common foot soldier probably won't be benefiting from this. Next I predict we'll be seeing bullets that suppress the ability of the armor to detect them, and perhaps assassins will go back to the up-close-and-personal approach. After all, this won't protect from bombs, close gun fire, knives, etc. So, maybe it's good that we can defend ourselves from snipers. But maybe it will just change the face of violence once again, and war will go from long-range and impersonal to up close and personal again. Complaints have been that with so much technology in war, we can kill by using a computer screen; taking away the personal element makes it easier to kill, and easier to make the decision to do so, and this can lead to a dangerous slippery slope. But if new armors prevent long range killing, maybe we're on the way out of impersonal killing... or maybe it will just all change.