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Billion-dollar deal between Microsoft and U.S. Army for HoloLens headsets

The US Army has commissioned Microsoft to supply 120,000 HoloLens mixed reality headsets. The contract will earn Microsoft around $22 billion.

Mass production of HoloLens headsets

Microsoft can rejoice, the U.S. Department of Defense has contracted the group to supply the U.S. Army with HoloLens mixed reality headsets over the next ten years. Microsoft has already begun development at the end of 2019, and was commissioned with the development in 2018. The version for the US Army is called Integrated Visual Augmented System (IVAS), which has already swallowed development costs for prototypes of 480 million US dollars. With the IVAS headset, the U.S. Army is also using Microsoft’s Azure cloud services. The software company says this will provide a secure and effective platform for soldiers.

The gigantic contract from the U.S. military will earn Microsoft approximately $21.88 billion over the next ten years. From prototype development, the plan is now to move into mass production of the IVAS. In the process, the design for mounting it on soldiers’ heads has been revised for the special version of the HoloLens for the U.S. Army. The case of the IVAS has also been revised in such a way that the headset looks like a pair of glasses, i.e. a largely open headset. In addition, the numerous sensors of the military version of the HoloLens headset have also been better protected.

In contrast to the other providers of VR glasses, which mainly offer them for gaming, Microsoft has developed its HoloLens especially for industrial applications. The standard version of HoloLens is used by Mercedes-Benz, L’Oréal and Airbus, for example, according to Microsoft.

Software unknown so far

Which software will be used by the IVAS and also the features of the hardware are not yet known. Whether the ARM-based hardware of the HoloLens 2 or a newer hardware platform will be used remains open for now. In the first demonstrations of IVAS by the U.S. military, it was noted that at least map data will be available. In addition, the Pentagon announced that the IVAS will have high-resolution night and thermal imaging cameras and sensors for orientation as well as decision-making. In addition, these also help with target acquisition. The IVAS thus brings the user “superiority against current and future adversaries.” Soldiers are said to be enabled by the new system to “fight, train and test missions on a single platform.”

Simon Lüthje

I am co-founder of this blog and am very interested in everything that has to do with technology, but I also like to play games. I was born in Hamburg, but now I live in Bad Segeberg.

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The US Army has commissioned Microsoft to supply 120,000 HoloLens mixed reality headsets. The contract will earn Microsoft around $22 billion. Mass production of HoloLens headsets Microsoft can rejoice, the U.S. Department of Defense has contracted the group to supply the U.S. Army with HoloLens mixed reality headsets over the next ten years. Microsoft has … (Weiterlesen...)

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