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.

Comments

Sad day for the military

[Order_66]

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

we can do one better

[zlives]

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

Re:we can do one better

[batkiwi]

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?

Re:No HoloLens in FEDERAL PRISON

[Vanyle]

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

New Platform for the "BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH"

[ksw_92]

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.

Fallout

[Thyamine]

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

Re:Fallout

[zlives]

because nukes?

Clippy!

[Anonymous Coward]

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

All fine until in the middle of battle....

[sconeu]

"Hololens is rebooting to install downloaded updates"

Re:FalloutFTFY

[zlives]

Value-Added markeTing System, otherwise known as win10

digitalpeace.microsoft.com

[ffkom]

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."

Re:digitalpeace.microsoft.com

[rtb61]

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.

BSOD

[DuroSoft]

Now we can have a literal blue screen of death

Well there's a good use for my tax dollars

[rsilvergun]

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.

Re:Well there's a good use for my tax dollars

[srichard25]

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.

Re:Well there's a good use for my tax dollars

[serviscope_minor]

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.

Re:Well there's a good use for my tax dollars

[raind]

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

Sweatheart deal for something else.

[PJ6]

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

Guess what they got in exchange for it.

BSOD

[BobFulton]

BSOD sort of takes on new meaning here.

Acronym

[PPH]

Integrated Visual AugmentatioN System .... IVANS.

MagicLeap ?

[edi_guy]

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

Maybe Microsoft can make ...

[CaptainDork]

... a decent goddam F-35.

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

I actually feel bad about this as a taxpayer

[melted]

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.

My literal reaction to reading the headline

[TheDarkener]

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

(I live in the U.S.)

I did

[rsilvergun]

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.

Re:No HoloLens in FEDERAL PRISON

[rojash]

Clown Fuck.

Oooh,...

[PortHaven]

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

I Agree

[kackle]

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.

Re:I Agree

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Is that a Dog Whistle?

[rsilvergun]

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.