Interesting article from Slate on why the US Army chose pixel camouflage and why it soon may change.

Seen with civilian eyes, the rise and fall of the [Universal Camouflage Pattern (or UCP)]—and the family of rectilinear camouflage patterns to which it belongs—reads like a parable of irrational exuberance. Pixelated camouflage started to catch on in the technophilic years of the late-1990s, a digital pattern for a dot-com world. By taking the flowing shapes of the old woodland prints and deconstructing them into tiny squares, military engineers applied a computer logic to nature: They made over the science of camouflage, once inspired by the evolution of peppered moths and other animals, into a kind of digital screen-print that could spread through the networked military as a piece of viral media.

How could engineers have lost touch with the evolution of dark moths and their adaptation to industrial pollution? Sounds like the Army is ready to return to reality and go fashion-analog. No more computer logic games. It’s back to nature.

Can you find the hidden pepper moth?