Project Maven

Five years ago, Google backed away from a Pentagon government contract because thousands of employees protested that its tech might be used for lethal drone targeting. Today, however, Silicon Valley has far fewer qualms about developing tech for the U.S. Department of Defense. So said four investors — Trae Stephens…

The US Department of Defense has announced contracts for cloud computing services valued at up to $9 billion to AWS, Google, Microsoft and Oracle. The contracts were awarded under the Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability (JWCC) – the successor to the $10 billion Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) deal that sought…

Google has linked up with chip fabrication company, SkyWater Technology, on an open source chip technology program with funding from the US Department of Defense (DoD) to build a reliable source of components for defense applications. SkyWater announced it has received $15 million in funding from the DoD to develop…

After cancelling its contentious Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) Cloud contract solicitation in July, the US Department of Defense (DoD) promised a followup request for proposals to provide cloud services for national defense under a less catchy acronym, the Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability (JWCC). The Pentagon at the time said…

In 2018, when Google employees found out about their company’s involvement in Project Maven, a controversial US military effort to develop AI to analyze surveillance video, they weren’t happy. Thousands protested. “We believe that Google should not be in the business of war,” they wrote in a letter to the…

Three years after its involvement with the military’s controversial Project Maven program led to employee strife within its walls, Google reportedly hopes to once again work with the Pentagon. According to The New York Times, the company is “aggressively” pursuing the Defense Department’s Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability cloud contract. A…

Steven Cherry Hi, this is Steven Cherry for IEEE Spectrum's podcast, Fixing the Future. IBM is a remarkable company, known for many things—the tabulating machines that calculated the 1890 U.S. Census, the mainframe computer, legitimizing the person computer, and developing the software that beat the best in the world at…

(CNN)A police officer died Tuesday after shots were fired outside the Pentagon building, according to three law enforcement sources. The Pentagon Force Protection Agency, which oversees the security of the Pentagon, confirmed the officer's death in a tweet late Tuesday, hours after reports first surfaced. "The Pentagon Force Protection Agency…

The frightening power of Big Tech is one of the few issues Democrats and Republicans still agree on, even if they don’t agree on the specifics. Conservatives often claim to be victims of a type of social media censorship that doesn’t exist, while Democrats tend to focus on corporate power…

I’m always a bit relieved when a tech company’s algorithm seems to fall short of mind reading. It’s somewhat reassuring when a so-called smart ad displays hideous shoes I would never buy just because I once bought a different pair from the same brand, or when Facebook suggests I befriend…