Microsoft wins contract with US Army to develop augmented reality for the battlefield

Microsoft won a deal to sell the US Army augmented reality headsets based on its HoloLens product and backed by Azure cloud computing services, the company said on Wednesday.

The contract could be worth up to $21.88 billion over 10 years, a Microsoft spokesman told Reuters.

Over the past two years, Microsoft has worked with the US Army on the prototyping phase of what is called the Integrated Visual Augmentation System, or IVAS. The company said the US Army had moved into the production phase of the project.

In a blog post, Microsoft technical fellow Alex Kipman said the headsets are designed to deliver "enhanced situational awareness, enabling information sharing and decision-making in a variety of scenarios".

The headsets will be manufactured in the US, according to the Microsoft spokesman.

This is not the first time Microsoft has worked with military to develop AR capabilities.

In 2019, the British Army began trialling HoloLens 2 headsets with 1,500 military personnel to help frontline medics carry out operations in war zones. The devices are programmed to send instructions to those providing emergency medical treatment on the ground from specialists anywhere in the world.

Using the glasses, those on the ground will be able to share information about the injured, such as vital statistics, to seek help from medical experts.

Microsoft was also in line to win a $10bn JEDI cloud computing contract with the Pentagon, but the contract remains in dispute in a lawsuit filed by Amazon. Pentagon officials told US lawmakers in February that the Defence Department may jettison the contract if the dispute lingers in the courts.

Handout photo courtesy of US Army taken October 27, 2020.

After Microsoft announced a $480 million contract in 2018 to supply prototypes to the US Army, at least 94 workers petitioned the company to cancel the deal and stop developing "any and all weapons technologies", Reuters reported.

On Wednesday, the Microsoft Workers 4 Good group said on Twitter: "We would much rather Microsoft used today to stand up for Transgender people everywhere on Transgender Day of Visibility, instead of building weapons of war."

COMPANY%20PROFILE

%3Cp%3EFounder%3A%20Hani%20Abu%20Ghazaleh%3Cbr%3EBased%3A%20Abu%20Dhabi%2C%20with%20an%20office%20in%20Montreal%3Cbr%3EFounded%3A%202018%3Cbr%3ESector%3A%20Virtual%20Reality%3Cbr%3EInvestment%20raised%3A%20%241.2%20million%2C%20and%20nearing%20close%20of%20%245%20million%20new%20funding%20round%3Cbr%3ENumber%20of%20employees%3A%2012%3C%2Fp%3E%0A

While you're here

Kareem Shaheen: In Syria and elsewhere, women often bear the brunt of war

Janine di Giovanni: What we don't get about women in politics and war

Taliban's female assassins who lured men to their deaths released

Panipat

Director Ashutosh Gowariker

Produced Ashutosh Gowariker, Rohit Shelatkar, Reliance Entertainment

Cast Arjun Kapoor, Sanjay Dutt, Kriti Sanon, Mohnish Behl, Padmini Kolhapure, Zeenat Aman

Rating 3 /5 stars

Classification of skills

A worker is categorised as skilled by the MOHRE based on nine levels given in the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO) issued by the International Labour Organisation.

A skilled worker would be someone at a professional level (levels 1 – 5) which includes managers, professionals, technicians and associate professionals, clerical support workers, and service and sales workers.

The worker must also have an attested educational certificate higher than secondary or an equivalent certification, and earn a monthly salary of at least Dh4,000.

How Filipinos in the UAE invest

A recent survey of 10,000 Filipino expatriates in the UAE found that 82 per cent have plans to invest, primarily in property. This is significantly higher than the 2014 poll showing only two out of 10 Filipinos planned to invest.

Fifty-five percent said they plan to invest in property, according to the poll conducted by the New Perspective Media Group, organiser of the Philippine Property and Investment Exhibition. Acquiring a franchised business or starting up a small business was preferred by 25 per cent and 15 per cent said they will invest in mutual funds. The rest said they are keen to invest in insurance (3 per cent) and gold (2 per cent).

Of the 5,500 respondents who preferred property as their primary investment, 54 per cent said they plan to make the purchase within the next year. Manila was the top location, preferred by 53 per cent.