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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

#151

Post by hutzlibu »

chrisseaton wrote: post #120
hutzlibu wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WW2 (at least in europe) was pretty much a result of the harsh on the loosers of WW1 treaty of Versailles. So germany did not feel much love from the world - the world was demanding lots of pay as reparations every year(I think it was originally planned till 1990!). They felt they have to get strong to reclaim what was theirs. (Very simply put)

No matter how much 'love' you give, someone somewhere will want to take more from you. And if you have nothing to defend yourself with they're going to walk all over you. What 'love' do you think the US should have given to Japan to stop them attacking? What do you do when you've given all your 'love' and have nothing left and they ask for more or they'll attack? You need a military and it needs to be good.

Oh, sure. Si vis pacem, para bellum.

But the thing is: for example switzerland can claim they are honestly doing this. The US not really. There it seems more "to prepare for war to go for war".

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

#152

Post by [deleted] »

thanhhaimai wrote: post #84
bushbaba wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Half of the US family has less than $500 in the bank. A large portion of people spent less than $10 per day on food. That's an absurd stand to argue that people can afford to go hungry for 7 straight days just so the military get some headsets. I'm not into heavy politics. But if you want to argue about job creation, I can bet that spending the above money on infrastructure (like last mile fiber internet) will create…

[deleted]

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

#153

Post by munk-a »

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 isn't general human nature to fight - it's the survival instinct kicked in by desperation. Some people are naturally unbalanced and society needs to deal with that, but most people just want to live and let live.

The military is important as a show of force to crazies, but if we diverted a good chunk of the cash that goes to it to raise the standard of living here and abroad then the need for conflict could be minimized.

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

#154

Post by cryptica »

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…

It's a scam obviously. Microsoft is using its connections to scam US tax payers.

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

#155

Post by quickthrowman »

tartoran wrote: post #107
curiousgal wrote: post #2

Microvision's stock shot up ~50% because of this. Their technology powers the Hololens 2 apparently.

Microsoft's stock didn't budge. Is this contract going to go directly to Microvision?

> (MSFT) didn’t budge

???

The 2:00-2:05 (CDT) 5 minute candle for MSFT was a 2% move, that’s not nothing for a 1.77T company lol

The candle low was 234.47 and the candle high was 239.10, this is in a 5 minute span

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

#156

Post by remarkEon »

ryanmarsh wrote: post #35
remarkEon wrote: post #3

Anyone work this technology and can talk about it (without breaking whatever NDA of course)? I'm a former infantryman and ... let's just say I'm _extremely_ skeptical of this kind of technology for all but the most niche use-cases (think, AR for the driver in the hole of the truck). Obviously for pilots stuff similar to this has been around for a while, but the article is not really clear about how exactly this would…

Infantry here too, I think it would be cool for the TC to have the blue force tracker, maps, and any other sensors available in a heads up display. Also, seems like a no-brainer for tankers. I do not want to carry this shit on a patrol though.

Agree, the Armor community might really like this stuff. Especially if it can be paired with a sensor suite on the outside of the vehicle, so the TC (or maybe everyone) in the vehicle can "see" through the hull. The complexity of determining which surfaces within the truck should show as translucent in the HUD seems like a pretty tough problem to me though.

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

#157

Post by Enginerrrd »

chrisseaton wrote: post #6
remarkEon wrote: post #3

Anyone work this technology and can talk about it (without breaking whatever NDA of course)? I'm a former infantryman and ... let's just say I'm _extremely_ skeptical of this kind of technology for all but the most niche use-cases (think, AR for the driver in the hole of the truck). Obviously for pilots stuff similar to this has been around for a while, but the article is not really clear about how exactly this would…

Imagine being given a mission and being able to recreate the target area in VR and walk around while you conduct your estimate, orders, and rehearsals. Or imagine being able to look over a piece of ground and see the location of your people annotated through AR. Or driving a route and seeing your planned route annotated. Yes please absolutely get this into my hands.

Ok, now imagine you have to hump an extra 10lbs of crap in 120 degree heat for weeks on end while the glasses are fogged up and you got a sunscreen smudge on the lens. And your field of view is now greatly complicated with extraneous information you don't need to know like ammo capacity of your current magazine. And you need to low crawl through a drainage/sewer ditch and through a hole in a fence to get to another position with all that crap on your head/body without getting tangled up.

And now your patrol got delayed for some reason so now none of that crap is charged or working anyway. And your glasses or the controller got dislodged during a sprint to cover. Or you need to find the reset button for some reason.

You can have my set. It might be a valuable training tool though.

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

#158

Post by verdverm »

fasteddie31003 wrote: post #60

As a taxpayer this seems like a waste of money. AR is just a novelty. If I were a solider in a firefight, I don't think I'd want some annoying UI in my eye telling me were to shoot.

HL2 is far more than a novelty, you should really try one out.

Soldiers who have tried this absolutely love it and can see many places where this literally changes the game.

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

#159

Post by whomst »

atoav wrote: post #111
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...

Even if we assume military is not only necessary, but actually good , wouldn't there still be a point where a society spends too much on it's military and everything goes to shables because of it? Let's assume the US would reach this point — how would it look from the inside? Would the downfall happen fast or would it spawn decades? What if we are already in it? The US could spend half of what it currently spends on…

>The US could spend half of what it currently spends on the military and still be twice as powerful in terms of military force as the rest of the world combined.

Do you have a source for that?

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

#160

Post by trentnix »

wavefunction wrote: post #137
trentnix wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We have the productivity to afford that; we just have chosen to consolidate it to a relative few. And absent the threat of violent force, how do you suppose we take that productivity from this relative few? My government threatens me with penalties and imprisonment if I don't give up my "fair share" via various taxes. And if I resist that, they use weapons to force me to comply. Are you not just trading one definit…

I can't speak for your country but at least in the US the government is "We the People" or at least those of us interested enough to get involved whether by voting or running for office. If my democratic society has decided through an open and fair democratic process to require certain levels of taxation then it's my responsibility to society to meet those regulations. If I disagree with what has been collectively de…

my responsibility to society

That's the rub. Your responsibility is determined by the mob. If you resist, the mob, via the justice system, forces you to comply with the threat of physical violence.

If I resist with force, is that not war? If two of us resist with force, is that not war? If 10000 of us resist with force, is that not war? Was the Civil War not war?

Is it really any more poetic when it's done by large groups of people than when it's done by a few?

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