In a recent story the Washington Post wrote about what animals, specifically octopus, cuttlefish, and squid otherwise known as cephalopods can teach us about camouflage.
The ability of humans to camouflage themselves is very important in military applications.
UMBC biology professor, Tom Cronin, is quoted as saying:
Military applications will come first, predicts Thomas Cronin, a biologist at the University of Maryland Baltimore County who is part of the research community with octopus-to-gadget ambitions. “When a machine or person moves to a different environment or background, these camouflage systems could automatically reduce the level of detectability to any imaging system,” he says.