Switched has a new home! Huffpost Tech.

Click here to visit the new home of Switched!

Hot on HuffPost Tech:

See More Stories
AOL Tech

U.S. Spies Receiving Training Via Custom Video Games

by Terrence O'Brien on May 9, 2008 at 03:10 PM

U.S. Spies Get a Trio of Training Video Games
You can learn just about anything from video games at this point. Non-profits use them to teach immigration law, budding rock musicians can use them learn to play guitar, and the Army even uses games to recruit and train people.

Now the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) is getting in on the action with three games of its own in which trainees play a rookie intelligence analyst who has to solve a series of problems and avert crises, without weapons of course. The three games -- 'Rapid Onset,' 'Vital Passage,' and 'Sudden Thrust' -- teach the fundamentals of intelligence analysis through exercises involving an attack on an oil tanker in the Persian Gulf, the purchase of an aging Soviet aircraft carrier by China, and a the rescuing of a hijacked natural gas tanker in New York Harbor.

The DIA hopes these custom video games will make training easier and cheaper, especially as they're asked to train 2,000 combat military personnel deployed overseas where classrooms and instructors are in limited availability. [Source: Wired]

Tags: breaking news, BreakingNews, intelligence, military, training

Add your comments

Please keep your comments relevant to this blog entry. Email addresses are never displayed, but they are required to confirm your comments.

When you enter your name and email address, you'll be sent a link to confirm your comment, and a password. To leave another comment, just use that password.

To create a live link, simply type the URL (including http://) or email address and we will make it a live link for you. You can put up to 3 URLs in your comments. Line breaks and paragraphs are automatically converted — no need to use <p> or <br /> tags.

HuffPost AOL Social News Most Popular