The Air Force is a driving force…
Mark Willner said that we met with Air Force personnel that are the “driving force” behind most of the federal funding for 3D displays this time last year. Since then, it seems like indirect mention of the ‘Air Force’ keeps surfacing in rather obscure ways from time to time.
A couple months prior to the Air Force meetings we identified a special type glass for the Lab Proto 3 image chamber. In Mark’s June 25, 2013 PR announcing the meetings with the Air Force, it was also announced that we hoped to put in place a joint development agreement with the unnamed company providing the specialty glass. It just so happens that the President/CEO of the newly-created SCHOTT Defense is a retired Air Force Major General who joined SCHOTT North America, Inc., which specializes in glass and glass-ceramics, in 2007. Could it be that Scott Custer saw Proto 2 in April 2013, was impressed, and got us an interview with Air Force cats that June who could distribute tax payer money upon higher approval?
The General said this in the May 29 funding pursuits PR:
“… 3DIcon's eyeglass free 3D volumetric display technology provides the next leap forward in display innovation, and is a natural next step for federal agencies to support. The private public partnership of federal funding from the sources we are pursuing would serve to rapidly commercialize this breakthrough technology."
This comes from the same PR of our funding pursuit with the US Air Force Research Lab:
“In a recent meeting with the staff of Oklahoma Senator James M. Inhofe, 3DIcon and Schott requested an increase to the investment being made by the US Air Force in "Human Analyst Augmentation" and to direct this additional investment to eyewear free volumetric 3D display technology.”
Are the General and Jim Inhofe’s office on the same page? Are they saying that eyeglass free or eyewear free (however you want to say it) volumetric 3D display technology could be funded as an “additional investment” to the Air Force’s Human Analyst Augmentation appropriation already in-place? If they are, how convenient!
I have no idea how this “increase to the investment” happens – if it does – by a stroke of the pen or an amendment to an upcoming Senate appropriations bill, but it seems like hometown boy Jim Inhofe’s next step could have something to do with CSpace leaping forward.
