Microsoft wins $21.9B contract with U.S. Army to supply AR headsets • Hacker News Board

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

#241

Post by nonameiguess » Wed, Mar 31, 2021, 9:59 PM UTC

screye wrote: post #86

Huh, I find it weird that Amazon and Msft fought so rabidly for the $10B JEDI contract, and this $22B contract seems to have gone through without any fanfare. This is 10x what Facebook paid for Oculus. I wonder what MSFT showed to them in the demos. I imagine it must have been mindblowing.

Not the way the JEDI and C2S contracts work. I'd need to go read a bunch of legal documents I don't feel like reading to see what those numbers really represent, but I imagine it's just reimbursement for standing up and operating the data centers while certifying them for classified data storage and connection to classified networks.

They still get to actually sell services after that, though. If you just divide Amazon's original $600 million contract for 10 years for C2S, that's $5 million a month. I can tell you when I was working for a single large program that hadn't even gone into ops yet last year, we were paying over $5 million a month per environment, and we had three environments. That's just a single tenant.

In contrast, this contract for AR HUDs is much more likely just a straightforward charge once, build once order. There's no additional money to be made on the backend selling in app purchases to platoons or add-on services. For JEDI, after building the cloud, Microsoft still gets to actually sell its IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS services on top of that.

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

#242

Post by kodah » Wed, Mar 31, 2021, 9:59 PM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #198

remarkEon wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with all of this. I'll add one more: so much of what platoon leaders do now is teach about technology. There's only so many hours in the day for training, and (even back in 2013!) the load was starting to cause deficiency in basic combat tasks. We just didn't have the time between all the requirements to get everyone proficient in the myriad of sensor tech we ended up carrying. Plus, if it's possible to break…

> What happens if you can't, because "authentication"? Aren't your radios already using cryptographic fills? What do you think the difference is?

I carried around the device that filled crypto for radios.

Most people don't know how to use them and don't understand how to do a basic function check with them. It takes someone who has taken a class in receiving data with them and probably a patient Gunny who has been doing this stuff way too long.

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

#243

Post by paxys » Wed, Mar 31, 2021, 10:02 PM UTC

mrkstu wrote: post #5

And here, ladies and gents, is why companies like Microsoft, will eternally resist getting aligned with internal employee groups Resisting selling to government entities, whether ICE or the Army. There is way too much money to be lost.

Microsoft in general has employees who are happy to work 9-5 and go home rather than the activist sorts. Pushback, if any, comes from a very very small set. The articles mentions that 94 workers voiced concerns when they announced the original contracts, which isn't worth even talking about.

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

#244

Post by warpech » Wed, Mar 31, 2021, 10:08 PM UTC

cbozeman wrote: post #233

Enginerrrd wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm inclined to agree. While it might be nice in theory to have your battlefield painted with where the friendlies are or something, there are so many issues with that in practice I can't imagine it actually getting used by infantry. Just off the top: All the electronics shit is gonna add weight, bulk, and power requirements. It's gonna get dirty, fogs up, w/e. It's gonna not work for one reason or another b/c it can…

AIUR - Augmented Infantry Universal Reality headset Patch 1.76 notes * Fixed a bug that occasionally caused friendly units to display as hostile ones. * Corrected AR ammo counter to correctly match actual rounds in small arm. * Adjusted networking code to ensure headsets remain synced with team leaders. And hundreds of other potentially dangerous and hilarious patch notes... Looking forward to everyone saying, "My li…

FTFY: Corrected off-by-one error in the AR ammo counter to correctly match actual rounds in small arm.

;)

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

#245

Post by beeandapenguin » Wed, Mar 31, 2021, 10:16 PM UTC

anon_tor_12345 wrote: post #12

paxys wrote: post #4

People on the ground never have use for such tech. These deals are all political and the actual equipment arrives by the truckloads and sits unboxed. When people rant about ridiculous military budgets and spending it isn't about cutting soldiers' salaries but shit like this.

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

Another example is optical zooming.

Companies like Mojo Vision have already built a contact lens prototype that could power “superhuman” traits like this.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pV52DF5IrEc

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

#246

Post by encryptluks2 » Wed, Mar 31, 2021, 10:19 PM UTC

frisco wrote: post #13

On the plus side, this means we are much more likely now to get actually awesome prosumer/consumer-grade AR systems with many of the current issues worked out in the next N years. It's starting to get to a point where, though it's still kind of lame, you can see how it would be awesome, but still needs $B of R&D so... I'll take it.

Yes, you now have a much bigger chance of getting your proprietary AR headset for $499 linked to your microsoft.com account with the development paid for by US tax dollars used to kill children in Yemen with drones.

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

#247

Post by polyomino » Wed, Mar 31, 2021, 10:20 PM UTC

Enginerrrd wrote: post #37

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…

I'm inclined to agree. While it might be nice in theory to have your battlefield painted with where the friendlies are or something, there are so many issues with that in practice I can't imagine it actually getting used by infantry. Just off the top: All the electronics shit is gonna add weight, bulk, and power requirements. It's gonna get dirty, fogs up, w/e. It's gonna not work for one reason or another b/c it can…

HL2 uses eye tracking for authentication so that one should be partially solved

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

#248

Post by encryptluks2 » Wed, Mar 31, 2021, 10:21 PM UTC

gundmc wrote: post #39

tmotwu wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, outspoken internal employee groups exist and higher ups acknowledge them. Satya drives home the empathy and feelings message more than any other CEO. And AFAIK, I don't recall an instance of Microsoft suppressing an employee's voice similar to what happens at Google frequently. They tried getting their employees to participate in their internal social networks but it never caught any attention. Microsoft just…

Google has also had several high profile cases of abandoning pursuit of extremely lucrative military/government contracts due to backlash from employees.

If I had to choose between Google and Microsoft on which company I trusted the most to more good, I'd choose Google time and time again.

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

#249

Post by lm28469 » Wed, Mar 31, 2021, 10:27 PM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #164

Enginerrrd wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 p…

> You can have my set. Thanks, I'll take it! You can say the same as you have about any technology. Why lug around a big heavy rifle when you could carry sharpened sticks? I guarantee you people said exactly the same about the first radios, for example. Now you wouldn't even consider leaving the wire without a radio under any circumstances whatsoever.

> I guarantee you people said exactly the same about the first radios, for example

This doesn't prove anything and is 300% survivorship bias. There are thousands of tech innovations that were utter shit and we never hear about them. AR on the battlefield as describe above is a COD player wet dream and has no basis in reality.

> King estimates that the average soldier goes into action with a hefty 20 lbs of batteries.

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

#250

Post by chrisseaton » Wed, Mar 31, 2021, 10:31 PM UTC

lm28469 wrote: post #249

chrisseaton wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can have my set. Thanks, I'll take it! You can say the same as you have about any technology. Why lug around a big heavy rifle when you could carry sharpened sticks? I guarantee you people said exactly the same about the first radios, for example. Now you wouldn't even consider leaving the wire without a radio under any circumstances whatsoever.

> I guarantee you people said exactly the same about the first radios, for example This doesn't prove anything and is 300% survivorship bias. There are thousands of tech innovations that were utter shit and we never hear about them. AR on the battlefield as describe above is a COD player wet dream and has no basis in reality. https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/research/a25644619... > King estimates that the av…

> AR on the battlefield as describe above is a COD player wet dream and has no basis in reality.

I can only offer that I want to try it.