4 ms·

Earlier this week, Microsoft announced a big military contract for Hololens. Before that, they announced a Discord acquisition, before that finalized Bethesda a

Earlier this week, Microsoft announced a big military contract for Hololens. Before that, they announced a Discord acquisition, before that finalized Bethesda acquisition, etc. You're right that it might be my bias (I work in games, game engine and XR, not web), but all of those were reported by tech media like The Verge and mainstream publications tech reporting, not gaming or niche VR sites.

sn_master 6y ago
Yup, I especially like the HoloLens and the Pentagon contracts. Those are things that Google would have easily taken with Google Lens (which they are already selling to the industrial applications) and GCP, but can't due to the internal political pressure groups from employees preventing them from doing government contracts.
- aksss 6y ago
  Some days - not saying it's true, but if it was - the idea of the rabid social dissent and conflict we see in the US being the product of Chinese/Russian cultural campaigns seems like pure genius. Disallowing the US military to leverage Google IP in the field? Check. Many other convenient benefits to those countries by egging on disunity.
- WorldMaker 6y ago
  You don't hear as much about them, but Microsoft has very similar pressure groups that have been involved in complaints about Azure and GitHub usage by the military and ICE. A lot of very similar stories are in HN if you search. It may not be that Google's pressure groups are more successful, but that the government actually has more interests in Microsoft's products and support agreements. (HoloLens is on v2 and is expected to have long term support. Google Glass has been cancelled twice, and you claim it is rebranded now, but my search just now turns up Google Lens as just a phone app with no hardware initiative. Even if there is a hardware initiative with that brand name, that's still two cancellations and a confusing brand name change too many for most government contracts to trust. There are similar complaints about GCP versus Azure out there, though I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader.)

sn_master 6y ago

Yup, I especially like the HoloLens and the Pentagon contracts. Those are things that Google would have easily taken with Google Lens (which they are already selling to the industrial applications) and GCP, but can't due to the internal political pressure groups from employees preventing them from doing government contracts.

aksss 6y ago
Some days - not saying it's true, but if it was - the idea of the rabid social dissent and conflict we see in the US being the product of Chinese/Russian cultural campaigns seems like pure genius. Disallowing the US military to leverage Google IP in the field? Check. Many other convenient benefits to those countries by egging on disunity.
WorldMaker 6y ago
You don't hear as much about them, but Microsoft has very similar pressure groups that have been involved in complaints about Azure and GitHub usage by the military and ICE. A lot of very similar stories are in HN if you search. It may not be that Google's pressure groups are more successful, but that the government actually has more interests in Microsoft's products and support agreements. (HoloLens is on v2 and is expected to have long term support. Google Glass has been cancelled twice, and you claim it is rebranded now, but my search just now turns up Google Lens as just a phone app with no hardware initiative. Even if there is a hardware initiative with that brand name, that's still two cancellations and a confusing brand name change too many for most government contracts to trust. There are similar complaints about GCP versus Azure out there, though I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader.)