The Army has just given a demonstration to the press of Microsoft's HoloLens 2 military prototype



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A Hololens demo in 2018.
Photo: Elaine Thompson (AP)

Last year, Microsoft won a US $ 479 million contract with the US Army for the construction of Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) prototypes that a government document describes as intended to "accelerate capabilities." deadly defenses and offensives with the help of innovative components. " take a look at what Microsoft is preparing in the form of a modified HoloLens 2, and although it seems to have received a high-end demo rather than a refined look, it looks like the army is getting it wanted and feared Microsoft employees who signed a letter in February 2019 against the project.

CNBC was not allowed to take videos or photographs of the system, which is still in its infancy, but CNBC technology publisher Todd Haselton was able to run them. He wrote that the IVAS, in its current state, projects the map type of the local area flying bird overlaid with friendly matched sites equipped with IVAS. Call of Duty The player would immediately recognize on the lower part of the screen:

When I first put it, I saw a map in front of me that indicated exactly where I was. This gave me a bird's eye view of the building in which I was standing and also showed a nearby building. It's like any satellite image you can find online.

But as I turned my head, a small arrow icon representing my position was also rotated. I could also see several other points representing my other "team members" who were also wearing headphones.

(The military still does not seem to be able to do it on the fly, as one of the soldiers quoted in CNBC said: "We might not know what [the battlefield] but we can predict and take images from Google and implement them in IVAS. ") The upper part is covered with a compass that allows the user to determine immediately its recovery.

IVAS also has a built-in FLIR thermal imaging system designed by Haselton to produce a higher quality image than previous generations of night vision devices, as well as to mitigate the associated green glow, which is sometimes a gift for enemy troops. Perhaps most telling of the murderous intent of the system, IVAS incorporates lens-enhancing technology. CNBC wrote:

You can also ask, as I did, how a soldier can target a weapon while wearing an IVAS. Smartly, the system shows the reticle, or the purpose of the weapon, through the visor.

The technology also allows commanders to receive images directly from a subordinate's IVAS system. The system is being tested as part of training exercises (such as neutralization houses) and could display "after action" reports containing soldier performance indicators. Again, Call of Duty players might recognize that this looks like an end-of-mission screen.

"Engineers and scientists are side by side," Major Sergeant Michael A. Crosby told CNBC. "So, if there is a gap to correct, they report it to the laboratory and the soldier's command until everything is correct."

The military told CNBC that it hoped to have "thousands and thousands of soldiers in the army" using the system by 2022 and that it would be deployed on a large scale by 2028 – but the US military has the reputation of pouring countless billions into prototypes never be on the ground, including a future combat systems project intended to integrate troops and vehicles to sensor sets that would provide a continuous feedback of information in combat.

It is unclear how much IVAS would cost the unit (CNBC noted that the consumer version costs $ 3,500) and how flexible the system could work in real time on battlefields that might look very different in the field compared to a satellite. dish. (For example, it's not as if all engaged building units had digitized plans readily available). The question then is whether the equipment of the troops in complex digital assistants could hinder them if they were compromised by the enemy.

In other words, it is much easier to put in place brilliant demonstrations than to create a product that resists the long process of buying the armed forces.

Microsoft employees who protested against the IVAS contract also claimed that the company had "crossed the line of weapons development" and that "intent to harm is not an acceptable use of our technology." Speaking with CNBC, Army Undersecretary Ryan McCarthy, who knows that the military has this kind of capability "will not want to engage us" (a line of logic that did not necessarily fail with massive military superiority United States in recent conflicts). McCarthy added that IVAS would allow US troops to operate more accurately, avoiding harming civilians captured on the battlefield:

McCarthy also explained a little more about how the army uses the word "lethality," which was a point of objection in the letter.

"We use the word" lethality ", but if you look at this system, it improves the situational awareness and allows you to better fight against discrimination against targets," said the undersecretary. This means that soldiers can use IVAS to make sure they only kill the enemy, not civilians.

Again, it's an argument that sounds good on paper. But critics have often claimed, for example, that surgical stroking was largely a myth propagated by the military to justify operations presenting a high risk of collateral damage (ie civilians). died). In any case, the argument that IVAS will make soldiers more effective in killing the right It is unlikely that people will persuade those who believe that the use of the technology they have worked on has an inherent problem to increase the effectiveness of the destruction.

Microsoft is moving ahead with IVAS at a time when the relationship between Silicon Valley's large corporations and the military has become a major issue of contention. His offer for a major cloud computing project, JEDI, was the subject of a similar protest by an employee, whom Google had dropped out of with his project. Maven drone imagery, as a result of a similar outcry on the part of the core personnel. Many other large technology companies are also working with the Pentagon on various projects.

[CNBC]

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