General Motors is including a night-vision system with its newest Cadillacs, a breakthrough in mass consumer applications for a technology that has been under development for more than 50 years -- primarily for military use. From the introduction of the first light-amplification devices through the development of uncooled infrared focal plane arrays, the military has been the driving force in the evolution of photonic night-vision devices and systems, and the benefits to the scientific and industrial community have been numerous.