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Magic Leap is Pushing To Land a Contract With US Army To Build AR Devices For Soldiers To Use On Combat Missions, Documents Reveal (bloomberg.com)
Magic Leap, a US-based startup valued at north of $6 billion and which counts Google, Alibaba, Warner Bros, AT&T, and several top Silicon Valley venture capital firms as its investors, is pushing to land a contract with the U.S. Army to build augmented-reality devices for soldiers to use on combat missions, Bloomberg reported Friday, citing government documents and interviews with people familiar with the process. From the report: The contract, which could eventually lead to the military purchasing over 100,000 headsets as part of a program whose total cost could exceed $500 million, is intended to "increase lethality by enhancing the ability to detect, decide and engage before the enemy," according to an Army description of the program. A large government contract could alter the course of the highest-profile startup working on augmented reality, at a time when prospects to produce a consumer device remain uncertain.
Building tools to make soldiers more deadly is a far cry from the nascent consumer market for augmented reality. But the army's program has also drawn interest from Microsoft, whose HoloLens is Magic Leap's main rival. The commercial-grade versions of both devices still face significant technological hurdles, and its not clear the companies can fulfil the army's technical requirements. If recent history is any guide, a large military contract is also sure to be controversial within the companies. Last month, Magic Leap unveiled its much-hyped AR device to the press and select developers.
Building tools to make soldiers more deadly is a far cry from the nascent consumer market for augmented reality. But the army's program has also drawn interest from Microsoft, whose HoloLens is Magic Leap's main rival. The commercial-grade versions of both devices still face significant technological hurdles, and its not clear the companies can fulfil the army's technical requirements. If recent history is any guide, a large military contract is also sure to be controversial within the companies. Last month, Magic Leap unveiled its much-hyped AR device to the press and select developers.
If we've learned one thing from consumer electronics, it should be that the more complicated you make things, the more likely it is that they will fail spectacularly or be compromised by someone smarter than you are.
I know of whack job ragheads are trying to kill me, I want to put video game goggles on
My hustle ain't as good as these folks. These are PhD level scammers.
There is literally no way this will happen. The military cares about one thing for soldiers: weight. They know down to the ounce how much the kit of a soldier weighs. They have extensive information about how much each ounce of additional weight added to a soldier's kit affects performance. Getting something on to a soldier's back, even if it's one soldier in the unit, is a massive uphill battle.
The Magic Leap system will not add enough advantages to offset the weight. The headgear weighs too much, and the batteries required for any sort of actual performance would be a complete non-starter. Maybe as a HUD for vehicles where the power source can be driven, such as a tank or APC, but for soldiers, Magic Leap is dreaming.Leap is dreaming. if they think this will happen.
Building tools to make soldiers more deadly is a far cry
Don't worry, it won't happen. Let me count the ways...
It doesn't seem like the kind of thing you would give to every grunt. Maybe one per unit or something like that, for use by whoever is making the decisions.
If you can't sell your junk to the public, force them to buy it for a higher price for the government.
The military is using technology!? No!?
You are giving the army waaay too much credit here. They have some general guidelines but nothing even close to what you're saying. A lot of soldiers carry different guns for instance if their preference is something else and qualifies. That will weigh a different amount. Some soldiers already carry some pretty heavy gear. I'll agree that Magic Leap is dreaming and I worry the military is spending money on vaporware. As someone with family in the army I'd rather see properly HUDs that can highlight enemy activity and improve aim.
That said, AR would have a lot of uses, everything from not hitting explosive unintentionally to warning you about the presence of children, hidden targets and supplies that can only be seen through AR. No more sending up smoke and giving away your position. It would be great if it could get off the ground.
the ghostly jellyfish experience is pretty cool, but it's not something i want my life to depend on.
Energy harvesting from the movement of the soldier and the sun and body heat, plus self-illuminating e-ink displays and integration to the existing headgear. It wouldn't be the same as those high fidelity displays consumers and other users are accustomed to, but would need to boost up the quality when a drone feeding into the display is deployed. A transparent OLED screen on top of the e-ink display perhaps.
I accidentally read that thinking of LeapFrog instead of Magic Leap. That gave me a totally incorrect, but awesome mental image.
I don't see why this would be controversial for the company. This is different than AI or robotics. This is about making soldiers and operations more effective for the human soldiers on the ground. This is no different than making a better individual radio or night-vision goggles.
If the only use of this was the ability to identify friend-foe on the battlefield, it would be worth it.
The first model shall be called the Augmented Reality-15, shorted to AR-15 to make it easier.
The problem with your assumption here is that the army is requesting the bids, Magic Leap is not soliciting them.
Also, these are not intended for use in combat but instead for training exercises.
Yeah, yeah... Meanwhile, Ukraine's participants in the ongoing joint military exercises have just managed to capture the American participants' Headquarters and "kill" 32 personnel — "losing" only 2 of their own. Although the unit is, probably, among the best-equipped in Ukrainian army, they have none of the Americans' fancy stuff...
(RT's is the only piece I could find about this, that's in English — the Russians' comments under the RT's article are quite exhilarating.)
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
...make soldiers more deadly is a far cry...
Killing will almost be like playing a video game.
of the F-35. A lot of money spent for little or no ROI. e.g. more money tossed to the MIC while funding's cut to the VA back home.
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I used to work for a military contractor. We made REAL EXPENSIVE microwave gear for them.
You should have seen the condition these units came back from the field in.
I can't even image how those delicate little headsets would weather even a field C&C center.
There's quite a few good military applications of "simple" AR. No need for super performance to conjure up those floating jellyfish or whales jumping up out of the ground. A small processing unit and ocular for one eye (perhaps attached to a helmet) is enough to overlay whatever the soldier is looking at with relevant information. The examples mentioned in the article wouldn't require much, but it makes sense for the military to contract with a firm who already have experience with the necessary optics and sensors, and who have put in a lot of effort to make the thing wearable and affordable.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
You need to stop believing everything you read on internet blogs. The F-35 is the most advanced and most highly capable piece of equipment ever produced by humans. It's not the cluster internet blogs want you to believe it is.
No, I'm not giving them too much credit. I've worked selling hand-held diagnostic devices, and they are all over this weight issue. It's exactly the kind of thing one would think they would want: 1 guy needs it (the medic or the corpsman), theoretically light weight, and would have a significant impact on saving soldiers lives particularly in regions with difficult logistics like jungles and islands. The program was scrapped over battery size.
Someone upvote this one lots -- I can't.
If the universe is someone's simulation -- does that mean the stars are just stuck pixels?
US Army, run a fucking mile away from this. If you're desperate for a VR contract Bohemia and Occulus to supply something.
The shit I've been talking about fir a while
Lets see:
- They've spent $6 Billion
- They have yet to produce a viable product
- They are years behind schedule, and
- Previews suggest that they have wildly oversold their technology.
Are we sure they aren't *already* a defense contractor?
Aw thanks. You're sweet. *kisses*
>_ is intended to "increase lethality...
On my part, I'm devising ways of doing less and less business with US companies.
No prejudice and I even had great experiences with such products in the past -- I just don't want my money to be used in offensive initiatives (to increase lethality).
There was a time when people would be ashamed of saying such things... probably before the Civil War. Tsk.
So instead of autonomous weapons firing on their own, we'll have autonomous agents telling soldiers when to fire their weapons.
Hey, our local Lockheed-Martin rep! Good to meet you. I like your cargo planes, too.
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
So... we built F-35s which cost over $100 million plus substantially more for TCO... these are planes that if they are placed in a combat environment which would place them at risk of being damaged or lost at the tax payers cost, would be devastating. Even using them in training exercises is a really bad idea as it's simply too high of a risk financially to make use of them. It's better to use much less expensive planes if absolutely necessary. In addition, using fleets of drones is much better. At under $1 million per drone, militaries can compensate for the shortcomings of a drone by deploying a hundred times as many at far lower cost.
Now, let's talk about soldiers.
The US has 2.2 million active and reserve military members. Then there's the DoD, DoE, etc... The U.S. has tons of planes and tanks and all that crap... and this is good. If the U.S. didn't employ these people, they probably would imprison most of them just to avoid issues with the employment statistics. Hell, the TSA, DHS and other 3 letter organizations are another approximately 2 million people.
But let's be honest... a few hundred tons of styrofoam, a few tons of plastic waste and an automated manufacturing line for motors and a bunch of cheap microcontrollers is about all you need to start making a flying drone army these days. Warlords in SE Asia could start manufacturing exploding remote controlled drones by the millions for little money.
I don't care what any military says... even today, a molotov cocktail will still wipe out troops effectively. Fly a few thousand drones over a few tens of thousands of troops that can either trigger an alcohol explosion or when should would rain fire from the sky, and a million soldiers wouldn't look like much before long.
I don't care how great the AR is... building drones is the only real option... consider that China or India could probably take over the entire world by simply collecting and recycling trash into drones.
And for those people who say "You can't replace a good soldier with a machine" the answer is simple... why replace the soldier? I want something that when it dies I don't care. I don't want children in camouflage pajamas out there getting shot up. Send in machines instead. There's no point debating the issue... it's going to happen eventually... might as well embrace it before someone else does.
I thought they already had AR devices. If that wasn't good enough, then what is wrong with Google Glass?
The critically panned Magic Leap... what sort of wealthy and unaccountable idiot would put their money into a risky venture like this? Ah yes, the military of course.
I'm also a Boeing sales rep (odd conflict of interest I know.) Do you remember how the V-22 was the previous leader for the worst military financial disaster of all time? Yeah, that one turned out to be pretty useful after all.
I remember Microsoft announcing this, then never saw it again. Assumed they just abandoned it. Have they actually done anything with it aside from advertising ideas for it?
Yeah, absolutely, that tilt-rotor stuff was just hard to do. And the F16 was a dog for a while. Fwiw, I don't remember too many complaints about the F15 (besides its cost, ofc).
Software was critical to both of these. It's just that I look around at the quality of complex software and sometimes I despair.
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
It was proudly reported by Ukraine's own sites — including a Tweet by Ukraine's President. But none of it was in English, which is why I posted the link to RT — after personally verifying the text and concluding, it does not include anything I haven't already read on the other sides.
RT's owners hate Ukraine with passion. This makes the site a very reliable source of good news about Ukraine: if even they report this, it really must be true — because if they could've disproved/contradicted it somehow, they would have.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Or you don't trust it because it tells you the opposite of what you want to believe.