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Microsoft Wins $480 Million Military Contract To Bring HoloLens To Battlefield (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Microsoft has won a $480 million contract to develop an augmented reality system for use in combat and military training for the U.S. Army. Called Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS), formerly Heads Up Display (HUD) 3.0, the goal of the project is to develop a headset that gives soldiers -- both in training and in combat -- an increase in "Lethality, Mobility, and Situational Awareness." The ambitions for the project are high. Authorities want to develop a system with a goggle or visor form factor -- nothing mounted on a helmet -- with an integrated 3D display, digital cameras, ballistic laser, and hearing protection. The system should provide remote viewing of weapon sights to enable low risk, rapid target acquisition, perform automated or assisted target acquisition, integrate both thermal and night vision cameras, track soldier vitals such as heart and breathing rates, and detect concussions. Over the course of IVAS's development, the military will order an initial run of 2,550 prototypes, with follow-on production possibly in excess of 100,000 devices.

59 comments

  1. No HoloLens in FEDERAL PRISON by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/11/29/key-takeaways-michael-cohens-new-plea-deal

    1. There are conspicuous mentions of Trump and his family.
    2. Putin’s spokesman appears to have helped cover this up.
    3. This ties the Trump family’s efforts to the Russian government
    4) The deal apparently died the day The Post broke a story about Russian hacking.

    https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/deutsche-bank-offices-raided_us_5c00331de4b027f1097bc8aa

    https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/ny-pol-manafort-confidential-mueller-trump-giuliani-20181129-story.html

    1. Re:No HoloLens in FEDERAL PRISON by Vanyle · · Score: 1

      Are you that in love with trump that you have to bring him up in every conversation?

    2. Re:No HoloLens in FEDERAL PRISON by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      I'm that in love with America that watching Trump hang from his treasonous faggot fraud neck is my patriotic duty. Traitors hang.

    3. Re:No HoloLens in FEDERAL PRISON by rojash · · Score: 1

      Clown Fuck.

    4. Re:No HoloLens in FEDERAL PRISON by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Do you have an extra weird looking dildo that looks like Trump?

  2. Employees not forced by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Employees won't be forced to work on the contract.

    1. Re: Employees not forced by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Believe it when I see it

    2. Re: Employees not forced by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
  3. Sad day for the military by Order_66 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Missile ready 3...2....1.....(windows needs to reboot to install updates) WTF!!?!

    1. Re: Sad day for the military by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What does a blue screen of death look like in a VR headset, anyway?

    2. Re:Sad day for the military by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You don't know the half of it. Years ago while working for a defense manufacturer, we went through a major issue because the military ordered more hardware, but wanted it exactly the same as the previous order 8 years prior. That's all fine for physical hardware, but the previous order was run on Windows NT, which was no longer supported. It took us 2 years to go through a design review understand all the issues, and update the manuals to get them to Windows XP; by the time we were done, MS stopped support for XP. /sigh.

    3. Re:Sad day for the military by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So basically you worked with a bunch of morons who could not offer any intelligent alternatives along with being shitty project managers.

      "That's all fine for physical hardware" So you think 8 year old technologies were fine? Judging by your comment I place you in the 1990's where technology improvements were being rolled out on a weekly basis. You could have bought a PC in 1994 that would be effectively obsolete within a year.

      There are an awful lot of folks who endlessly rail on MS to cover up their own incompetence.

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    1. Re:GAY NIGGERS ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA FELCH ANUS! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      FUCK YOU RACIST!

  5. Math skills by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    In general, Negroes don't make very good mathematicians. If I had to choose between hiring a Negro mathematician and an Ashkenazi Jew mathematician, I would hire the Jew, hands down. No contest really.

  6. winning? by trumpai · · Score: -1

    You have to look at such fake news as men in black would. You know as if it might serve some sort of purpose in their rainbow world. Maybe they are not winning contracts, but getting paid for the past "secret" operations. In this case they are declassifying black and tar budget operations of the past due to statue of limitations or similar concepts. You know they are playing by the books. Your books. They are "old world" following orders of the new world they are attacking. So in this sense it's the "back to the future" operation, where they have their backs turned to the future. You're not exactly natives or indians. It's obvious that they have that part covered with all the kumbaya, migrants, refugees, modern slavery, etc.. You're entity that never lived except smoke cloud technology of rest in pieces crematorium.

  7. we can do one better by zlives · · Score: 1

    Just when china thought they had an edge on vaporware tech....

    1. Re: we can do one better by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I used a hololens 2 years ago. Hereâ(TM)s a link where you can buy it and select 2 day shipping. That is some serious vapor-

      https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/microsoft-hololens-development-edition/8xf18pqz17ts/gs0z?activetab=pivot%3aoverviewtab

    2. Re:we can do one better by batkiwi · · Score: 1

      I've got 10 within 10 meters of my desk. They do exactly what they say they do (we use them in schools).

      How is that vaporware?

    3. Re:we can do one better by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      with an integrated 3D display, digital cameras, ballistic laser, and hearing protection. The system should provide remote viewing of weapon sights to enable low risk, rapid target acquisition, perform automated or assisted target acquisition, integrate both thermal and night vision cameras, track soldier vitals such as heart and breathing rates, and detect concussions.
      you have 10 of these laying around?

  8. New Platform for the "BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH" by ksw_92 · · Score: 1

    Sensor fusion takes lots of power and code to come up with a product that someone in a high-stress environment can understand and act on. It also has to degrade gracefully or GTFOTW when its not operating properly. You can't blue-screen during a fire-fight. I don't know if Microsoft is the right choice for this. They make all their money in the "eh, close enough" product space. If this is purely a tech experiment/tech PoC project, OK.

    1. Re:New Platform for the "BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They can't possibly be worse than traditional defense contractors and the shamefully bad land warrior failures of the past.

  9. Zune, Windows Phone, and other successes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Early in my career I worked for a military contractor (not bombs or anything.) Building military grade hardware isn't easy.

    And with with such stellar successes as Zune and Windows Phone under their belts I'm not sure I have a lot of confidence in their ability to deliver. They may make decent keyboards and mice; this isn't going to be like that.

    This will be interesting to watch
    /me goes to make popcorn.

    1. Re:Zune, Windows Phone, and other successes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How did they get a gov contract with absolutely no American technical labour?

      All MS development is either: done off-shore, or by Indians on-site. Doesn't work like this
      at least require some security clearance? And isn't the head of MS a foreign national?
      We need Billy back at the helm - for as bad as MS was, it was 100,000.00 better than it is now.
      At least Billy is American, if nothing else...

      CAP === 'reverent'

  10. Re:Sad day for the military NIGGER YODA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1
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  11. Fallout by Thyamine · · Score: 2

    Why does this make me immediately think of the VATS system?

    --
    I will shred my adversaries. Pull their eyes out just enough to turn them towards their mewing, mutilated faces. Illyria
    1. Re:Fallout by zlives · · Score: 1

      because nukes?

    2. Re:Fallout by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I always liked the alternate rendering of VATS: the Value-Added Targeting System.

  12. Blue Screen of Death by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It brings a new meaning to âoeBlue Screen of Deathâ.

  13. Clippy! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Clippy: I see you're trying to shoot someone. Would you like to see where the best place to shoot them might be?

  14. All fine until in the middle of battle.... by sconeu · · Score: 1

    "Hololens is rebooting to install downloaded updates"

    --
    General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
    1. Re:All fine until in the middle of battle.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/11/29/key-takeaways-michael-cohens-new-plea-deal

      1. There are conspicuous mentions of Trump and his family.
      2. Putin’s spokesman appears to have helped cover this up.
      3. This ties the Trump family’s efforts to the Russian government
      4) The deal apparently died the day The Post broke a story about Russian hacking

      https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/deutsche-bank-offices-raided_us_5c00331de4b027f1097bc8aa

      https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/ny-pol-manafort-confidential-mueller-trump-giuliani-20181129-story.html

  15. Re:FalloutFTFY by zlives · · Score: 1

    Value-Added markeTing System, otherwise known as win10

  16. digitalpeace.microsoft.com by ffkom · · Score: 2

    Funny, how at the very same time, Microsoft starts a "petition for digital peace": https://digitalpeace.microsoft...

    What they actually want to say is: "Cyber-war should be waged only be the US institutions that we deliver to. We do not want you to compete."

    1. Re:digitalpeace.microsoft.com by rtb61 · · Score: 2

      Yeah it called PR=B$ advertising to create an image. Yeah everyone hates M$ because they are a pack of privacy invasive control freak dickheads who demand to be able to install software on your computer any time they want to and who use the retail market as crash test dummies for the corporate licences because of course they pay penalties for downtime for corporate losses and well, the retail suckers, they just laugh at as they watch them masturbating, really sick stuff.

      So now M$ supports peace, whilst developing warfare technology, all so fucking lame and all so typical M$ just full of shite, always has been and always will be.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
  17. BSOD by DuroSoft · · Score: 4, Funny

    Now we can have a literal blue screen of death

  18. Pricey at $188k each. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    2,550 devices for $480 million, is $188,235 apiece.

    Sometimes I'm amazed that we can waste so much money.

    1. Re:Pricey at $188k each. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because 100% of the cost is going into the hardware itself, and not a penny will be spent on R&D, programming, etc.

  19. Microsoft will be helping kill people. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Microsoft will be helping kill people and destroy their property. The abuse of Windows 10 was not enough?

  20. Well there's a good use for my tax dollars by rsilvergun · · Score: 5, Informative

    Half a billion gone just like that and we still don't have a single credible threat to our military. We've got 19 air craft carriers. China has 1. That they got from Russia if memory serves. Oh wait, they've got two now. Woopee. Meanwhile I don't have reliable access to medicine.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re:Well there's a good use for my tax dollars by srichard25 · · Score: 1

      Given that our country spends significantly more on Medicare/Medicaid than they do on the Military, I would suggest you ask yourself why you aren't getting reliable access to medicine.

    2. Re:Well there's a good use for my tax dollars by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      Don't forget the Russians have an aircraft carrier too, the sister ship of the hull sold to China.

      One that's always accompanied with an ocean going tug because it um needs an honour guard at all times.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    3. Re:Well there's a good use for my tax dollars by raind · · Score: 1

      I suggest you provide a source for that - before you get fact checked.

      --
      Get up!
  21. Sweatheart deal for something else. by PJ6 · · Score: 1

    Nobody believes the tech is ready, but they still granted the contract.

    Guess what they got in exchange for it.

  22. BSOD by BobFulton · · Score: 2

    BSOD sort of takes on new meaning here.

  23. Acronym by PPH · · Score: 1

    Integrated Visual AugmentatioN System .... IVANS.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  24. MagicLeap ? by edi_guy · · Score: 1

    Wasn't Magic Leap counting on that sweet DOD nectar? Methinks this is the first nail in the coffin for them.

  25. Aircraft Carriers are obsolete by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Half a billion gone just like that and we still don't have a single credible threat to our military. We've got 19 air craft carriers. China has 1. That they got from Russia if memory serves. Oh wait, they've got two now. Woopee. Meanwhile I don't have reliable access to medicine.

    That's not a good measure of a military. Aircraft Carriers are almost obsolete at this point. If you don't understand why, you shouldn't call youself a nerd.

  26. Maybe Microsoft can make ... by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

    ... a decent goddam F-35.

    Lockheed Martin failed where FlightSim might have had a chance and stuff.

    --
    It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
  27. I actually feel bad about this as a taxpayer by melted · · Score: 1

    I actually feel bad about this as a taxpayer. Not because of "ethics" or whatever, but because Hololens is a total useless piece of shit. I've used it myself, it's not even a "toy", it's totally useless even in that context. I'm having a hard time imagining anything useful the taxpayers are buying with this half a billion dollars.

  28. My literal reaction to reading the headline by TheDarkener · · Score: 2

    "Oh...............fuck."

    (I live in the U.S.)

    --
    It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
  29. I did by rsilvergun · · Score: 4, Insightful

    and it had nothing to do with taking care of old people and everything to do with bloody laws that prevent us from negotiating drug prices.

    Oh, and for my $1 trillion I get something (the old and poor taken care of). For the $600 billion (that we know of) we spent on the army last year all I got was a news story about us dropping a $21 million dollar bomb on some goat herders with old Russian AK47s. Sad thing is that when our president ordered it his poll numbers shot up. I suppose that's from guys like you?

    Seriously, this isn't defense. It's empire. But I don't even get cheap gas for all that empire building. Screw war. It's a bad deal for everyone but the folks at the top pulling our strings and lying about bone spurs.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
  30. Just ask a Commando/Ranger what is needed. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Special forces will say what the money should be spent on best. As they have ears and eyes and are alert, better boots may be the top of the list. No way will a VR headset beat drone cameras or a top forward placed sniper team.

    Sounds like some committee with no combat experience like these VR sim games, and aim to have teenagers do things shown in the 'Lost in space' movie or starwars. My bet is enhanced feedback squeel and wireless docking and camo colored charges will be what 1/2 a billion actually buys.

    Its no secret that the #1 best enhancement is military versions of 'stay awake and alert' drugs otherwise sold by your local dope peddlar.

  31. Oooh,... by PortHaven · · Score: 1

    Xbox Next X is going to have some really "killer" games...

  32. I Agree by kackle · · Score: 2

    If we had tight borders (including kicking out those who didn't belong), we probably wouldn't have spent this money on these dead end "wars", as 9/11 could have been prevented.

    1. Re:I Agree by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      9-11 was done by people who applied for and received student status. So unless you're talking fully closed borders and Fortress America, all you're really talking about doing is kicking out the people who pick your vegetables and build backyard decks.

    2. Re:I Agree by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't know if he was but I am.

  33. Is that a Dog Whistle? by rsilvergun · · Score: 2

    I know it's a faux pas to accuse folks of racism, but IIRC the 9/11 hijackers were here legally and we knew they were preparing a terrorist attack. Our illustrious police forces decided to "let the fish swim" so to speak. Then it came time for Bush Jr to be re-elected and he'd fucked up pretty bad so he dragged us into war with Iraq to get re-elected. Don't forget, the two countries we went to war with (and the 6 we added later) did not attack us. The hijackers were Saudis, but they were carefully escorted out of the country post 9/11 by Bush Jr...

    Seriously, kick all the Mexicans you want out of the country. They're not committing acts of terror. Tight borders won't fix anything. Unless by "tight borders" you really mean "White Christians only". In which case say so.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
  34. Bit late by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The Army didn't want this in 2004 when I tried to sell it to them.

    And I was going to do it with nowhere near a $480M bill, and I'm pretty sure with my nerd+infantry background it would probably still be better than what Microsoft makes for them.

    Oh well.