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Microsoft wins $21.9B contract with U.S. Army to supply AR headsets

reuters.com

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Re: Microsoft wins $21.9B contract with U.S. Army to supply AR headsets

#121

Post by verdverm »

king_magic wrote: post #68

... but why? I'm not military, so maybe I'm just not seeing it... but what use cases does the Army really care enough about to spend $22B on AR headsets for? I could maybe see a billion here, a billion there... but $22B... on AR headsets seems batshit insane. Certainly can't imagine soldiers in a firefight keeping them on. Maybe logistics use cases? It was hard enough to find commercial use cases for HoloLens, so I c…

The soldiers definitely want them.

This will likely save the army money in the long run, not to mention lives.

Re: Microsoft wins $21.9B contract with U.S. Army to supply AR headsets

#122

Post by moolcool »

intrepidhero wrote: post #108
trentnix wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf. - commonly attributed to Orwell

I strongly disagree. If some level of violence is necessary to ensure peace, the people entrusted with the power to inflict said violence should be compassionate and wise humans not, "rough men". And at the same time we should be putting our resources to work at lowering that necessary level of violence.

Beware "rough men" who project themselves be "compassionate and wise", lest you end up with a John McCain-type who says all the right things at home, but then wants to kill people overseas for profit.

Re: Microsoft wins $21.9B contract with U.S. Army to supply AR headsets

#123

Post by wcarss »

nickff wrote: post #43
blunte wrote: post #18

I don't look like a hippie, but I totally subscribe to the idea of "make love, not war". I imagine what the possibilities would be if we funded general non-military projects with the kind of money that goes into the military. Trillions have been spent on wars or war preparation, and of course the net result is worsening for humanity. What if instead that money were spend on helping humanity? Do we really need a confl…

Lots of non-military projects/programs are funded at similar or greater levels than military ones. Look at education, wealth-transfer programs (social security), and healthcare (medicare and medicaid); each of these gets more money than the DoD. Very expensive science projects (such as JWST @ $10BB) also get funded, though they're often pillaged for either pork or increased welfare spending.

> as Forbes' Erik Kain points out — that state and local governments generally foot the bill when it comes to education spending in America. If you factor those contributions in, the US spent about $880 billion on education in 2011, compared to $966 billion total on defense.

Maybe 2011 was just a really bad year for education, but I think you could stand to add citations on what seems like a pretty eyebrow-raising claim, that each of these things blanket "get more money" than the military -- let alone a whole discussion of the spending per user capita on these things and the value they have to society.

Also, the James Web telescope, at $10BB, has been in development for 20+ years, so that's ~$1B/year or less in total expenditures, on a program that's the poster child for massive cost overruns and bungling. If it had been presented as $10B originally, especially as an instantaneous cost, it likely would never have happened.

1 - https://www.businessinsider.com/education-military-spending-...

Re: Microsoft wins $21.9B contract with U.S. Army to supply AR headsets

#124

Post by Retric »

bushbaba wrote: post #50
blunte wrote: post #18

I don't look like a hippie, but I totally subscribe to the idea of "make love, not war". I imagine what the possibilities would be if we funded general non-military projects with the kind of money that goes into the military. Trillions have been spent on wars or war preparation, and of course the net result is worsening for humanity. What if instead that money were spend on helping humanity? Do we really need a confl…

There are about 300 million US citizens. 21.9 billion split evenly is $73 per person. And this is a multi year contract. It’s a lot of money, but not a huge amount divided across the population. This money likely also generates ancillary US jobs so the cost to tax payers might not be as bad as it sounds.

First infants are hardly paying 73$, more importantly a total is only relevant if this is the only money being spent. Instead this is simply more waste by a bloated system which delivers sub par results at extreme prices.

Re: Microsoft wins $21.9B contract with U.S. Army to supply AR headsets

#125

Post by remarkEon »

nordsieck wrote: post #73
anon_tor_12345 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a very obvious analogy here that proves you wrong: nvgs

> There's a very obvious analogy here that proves you wrong: nvgs Another example is red dot / holographic gun sights. As an aside, while I agree with you broadly on NVGs, my experience with PVS-7's is that they're basically not much better than naked eyesight (I hope the more modern NVGs are better). The thing that makes NVGs really good is either IR lights or IR lasers.

I think the difference though is all those examples require no more understanding of technology than how to operate a TV remote. Push some buttons, laser goes on. Even zeroing a holo sight is trivially easy.

And yes, modern NVGs are a whole different world from PVS-7s.

Re: Microsoft wins $21.9B contract with U.S. Army to supply AR headsets

#127

Post by [deleted] »

moolcool wrote: post #66
high_priest wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Life is one big war. Just because you live in a pleasant neighbourhood, doesn't mean there are no malevolent people in the world...

The last time the US went into a war because there were malevolent people in the world who posed a direct threat to the nation was in the 1940s

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft wins $21.9B contract with U.S. Army to supply AR headsets

#128

Post by akudha »

high_priest wrote: post #31
blunte wrote: post #18

I don't look like a hippie, but I totally subscribe to the idea of "make love, not war". I imagine what the possibilities would be if we funded general non-military projects with the kind of money that goes into the military. Trillions have been spent on wars or war preparation, and of course the net result is worsening for humanity. What if instead that money were spend on helping humanity? Do we really need a confl…

Life is one big war. Just because you live in a pleasant neighbourhood, doesn't mean there are no malevolent people in the world...

It is not a question of spending money on military, it is a question of how much. Last I checked, the US military budget is around 700B, while healthcare, education etc account for a tenth of that amount. Another question is, how much of this eye popping amount is wasted?

Re: Microsoft wins $21.9B contract with U.S. Army to supply AR headsets

#129

Post by onetimemanytime »

blunte wrote: post #18

I don't look like a hippie, but I totally subscribe to the idea of "make love, not war". I imagine what the possibilities would be if we funded general non-military projects with the kind of money that goes into the military. Trillions have been spent on wars or war preparation, and of course the net result is worsening for humanity. What if instead that money were spend on helping humanity? Do we really need a confl…

Sadly the world is not the simple. Small, defenseless nations and people are enslaved, one way or another. So, yeah, life is grand in USA and Western nations (relatively speaking) but maybe it's because their military defends it?

Ukraine for example feels different https://i.insider.com/54ff45afeab8ea38458b4568?width=800&for... . War sucks so best to make sure no one dares to start one with you.

Re: Microsoft wins $21.9B contract with U.S. Army to supply AR headsets

#130

Post by Shacklz »

hutzlibu wrote: post #91
blunte wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that many malevolent people, or at least their followers, would be much less malevolent or active if they had their basic needs met plus a little bit of cushion to enjoy life. To be more specific, many of the worst people have lived through some truly horrible childhoods (often experiencing war and poverty as a child). Stop the cycle of war and poverty, and then see how naturally malevolent people are. We h…

" Stop the cycle of war and poverty, and then see how naturally malevolent people are." So far it is only a hypothesis, that war can be avoided if people just would not starve anymore. (I don't think there was really hunger in europe pre WW1 for example) Also, assuming we would distribute ressources equally (nevermind the political means to achieve that for a moment): It no doubt would be enough for everyone today. B…

> But the world population is already going steeply up - with people starving.

The interesting part is that it is only really going up in nations that have not yet the comfort-level of western civilizations. I don't have the exact numbers at hand but in most European countries, and I guess vast parts of the US too, the population is actually stagnant or even shrinking if immigration is not considered.

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