Getting people to think outside the box is just what DARPA does best in all things tech. The agency's work stretches back to the '50s, and along the way it has spawned a vast array of commercial applications, products, and platforms. One of its initiatives in network communications - ARPANET - is credited with fathering the Internet. It funded development of the stealth technology that cloaks the B-2 Bomber, it's behind new light-but-strong materials that offer a future of safer, less-expensive cars, and DARPA-supported satellite technology enabled the global positioning systems making their way into PDAs and car dashboards near you. When U.S. troops rolled into Iraq, soldiers used a small device known as the phraselator to automatically translate English into Arabic - it works in 52 other languages as well - courtesy of a DARPA-funded project.

In recent years, DARPA has been working under a congressional mandate to make a third of the country's military forces completely autonomous and unmanned by 2015. To that end, it's funding a host of research initiatives into a new generation of robotic warriors. The idea is to develop machines that remotely guide, aim, and shoot weapons via land, air, and sea, so the military can pull human soldiers and support staff out of harm's way and replace them with inanimate objects (albeit expensive ones).

Pushing the envelope as DARPA does, though, can stir up occasional controversy. One DARPA-funded project dubbed Total Information Awareness - aimed at tracking just about anyone, anywhere - has roused fierce criticism from civil rights and privacy advocates concerned that the technology could end up pointed at civilians instead of its intended targets among the ranks of terrorists. To help allay those fears, the project has now been renamed "Terrorism Information Awareness," and it's being studied by Congress. In the meantime, the research continues.