Connect with us

Nation

Microsoft wins Army contract to develop, provide augmented-reality headsets

Published

on

Screen Shot 2021 03 31 at 5.53.30 PM

Microsoft, it was announced Wednesday, has won a contract with the U.S. Army to develop and provide over 120,000 devices augmented-reality headsets, which the Army says will allow soldiers to fight, rehearse, and train using a single platform.

An Army press release on Wednesday suggested that the headsets would provide night-vision, thermal vision, and other sensors “integrated into a unified Heads Up Display.”

“The system also leverages augmented reality and machine learning to enable a life-like mixed reality training environment so the CCF [Close Combat Force] can rehearse before engaging any adversaries,” the press release read.

In a statement to CNBC, a Microsoft spokesperson indicated that the deal could be worth up to $21.88 billion over 10 years.

This Microsoft-Army deal comes after a $480 million contract Microsoft was awarded in 2018 to provide the Army prototypes of Integrated Visual Augmented System (IVAS)—production versions of which the technology company will provide in accordance with the new deal.

“The IVAS headset, based on HoloLens and augmented by Microsoft Azure cloud services, delivers a platform that will keep soldiers safer and make them more effective,” Alex Kipman, a technical fellow at Microsoft and the person who introduced the HoloLens in 2015, penned in a Wednesday blog post. “The program delivers enhanced situational awareness, enabling information sharing and decision-making in a variety of scenarios.”

That 2018 deal, however, was not without its controversy. In response to Microsoft receiving that contract, several dozen of its employees signed a letter in protest, condemning the company for providing its technology for “warfare and oppression.”

“We are a global coalition of Microsoft workers and we refuse to create technology for warfare and oppression,” their letter stated. “We are alarmed that Microsoft is working to provide weapons technology to the U.S. military, helping one country’s government ‘increase lethality’ using tools we built.”

You can follow Douglas Braff on Twitter @DouglasPBraff.

You may like

Continue Reading

Elections

BREAKING: Federal Indictment of Trump in Classified Documents Probe has been Unsealed

Published

on

Screen Shot 2022 08 09 at 6.39.11 AM

Former President and current Republican Presidential Candidate Donald Trump, has been indicted and is facing 37 counts in connection with his alleged mishandling of classified documents. The 49-page document was unsealed Friday.

The indictment  contains charges of the following: Willful retention of national defense information, conspiracy to obstruct justice, withholding a document or record, corruptly concealing a document or record, concealing a document in a federal investigation, scheme to conceal, and making false statements and representations.

Trump announced the indictment Thursday night on Truth Social, his social media platform:

“The corrupt Biden Administration has informed my attorneys that I have been Indicted, seemingly over the Boxes Hoax, even though Joe Biden has 1850 Boxes at the University of Delaware, additional Boxes in Chinatown, D.C., with even more Boxes at the University of Pennsylvania, and documents strewn all over his garage floor where he parks his Corvette, and which is ‘secured’ by only a garage door that is paper thin, and open much of the time.”

Trump declared himself an “INNOCENT MAN” and the subject of the “Greatest Witch Hunt of all time.” The Biden administration, he claimed, is ‘TOTALLY CORRUPT.”

The former president has argued that all the documents in question were declassified when he left the White House. “You’re the president of the United States, you can declassify just by saying it’s declassified, even by thinking about it,” he told Fox News host Sean Hannity in an interview last year.

 

You may like

Continue Reading
Advertisement
-->

Trending Now

Advertisement
-->

Trending