More Doubts on the Army’s AR Deal; Adobe’s New Metaverse Angle

It’s been almost a year since Microsoft won a $22 billion U.S. Army contract to create combat-ready AR headsets based on HoloLens technology. The work doesn’t appear to be going well; a new report from Business Insider quotes from a memo sent to members of Microsoft’s team working on the headsets warning that the company is “expecting negative feedback from the customer” in a new round of tests scheduled to begin next Monday.

The landmark deal for the Integrated Visual Augmentation System AR headset was meant to mark a quick jump from the prototyping stage to “production and rapid fielding” that would see soldiers deployed with the headsets, but the development process has been dogged by setbacks and delays. As much as this may bode ill for Microsoft’s AR hardware prospects more broadly, it’s worth wondering how the Army’s hopes for IVAS got so far ahead of what actually appears to be feasible.