The Pentagon has reportedly positioned an order for 500 high-tech wearables that may give Google Glass a run for its cash.
According to Defense One expertise editor Patrick Turner, the United States Department of Defense is buying a cache of the state-of-the-art X6 glasses from San Francisco’s Osterhout Design Group that may “give spooks in the field an intelligence edge over everybody else.”
Defense One acquired to get an up-close-and-personal demonstration of the new DOD gear throughout a current symposium on the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Washington, DC headquarters, Turner wrote, and walked away with extra than simply an eyeful. According to the web site’s report, the wearables take present, consumer-grade expertise to the subsequent stage by providing an array of companies that indisputably appear more healthy for a spy or navy sniper than the nerd next-door.
“Defense One looked through the glasses at a static, two-dimensional map and suddenly structures appeared in three dimensions related to objects of interest,” Turner wrote. “With that particular app, the glasses send information to a server that then processes the image against others to determine the location depicted. The glasses then present data from the database visually in the form of structures, special instructions, clues, etc. The view was smarter and more useful than what you would see with Google Glass, but didn’t get in the way of the user’s ability to actually see, like a clunky virtual reality headset.”
Another a part of the demonstration, Turner added, concerned testing out a third-party facial-recognition program that permits for the X6 wearer to take a glimpse at somebody close by after which match their likeness with any which particular person contained inside a database. In principle, the Pentagon may program the biometric data of any service member or rebel on file right into a database linked to the glasses, which might then permit troopers within the area to see particulars concerning the particular person in entrance of them proper off the bat.
“What they want with the glasses is to bring in a lot of different applications. Facial recognition technologies from images is just one example,” Lynn Schnurr, vice chairman at General Dynamics Information Technology, advised Defense One.
The deal between the DOD and Osterhout Design Group comes inside weeks of an settlement during which Microsoft acquired IP belongings from the California firm for a reported $150 million.
“In terms of what we’re doing [at ODG], we don’t make weapons. We make things that can help people do their jobs,” founder Ralph Osterhout advised Tech Crunch again in March.