Hmmmmmm writes: Russia has registered the world’s first coronavirus vaccine for dogs, cats, minks, foxes and other animals, the country’s agriculture safety watchdog said Wednesday. Called Carnivak-Cov, the vaccine was developed by scientists at the Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance, also known as Rosselkhoznadzor, Russia’s Tass News Agency said.

Rosselkhoznadzor deputy head Konstantin Savenkov said Wednesday that this would be the world’s first authorized for widespread animal inoculations. The vaccine could be mass produced as soon as April, although the agency did not say when it would be on the market. ‘Carnivak-Cov, a sorbate inactivated vaccine against the coronavirus infection is the world’s first and only product for preventing covid-19 in animals,’ Savenkov told Tass News. Two U.S. companies, New Jersey-based veterinary pharmaceutical company Zoetis and the North Dakota-based Medgene Labs, have also been developing coronavirus vaccines for use among minks and other animals. Scientists in Russia launched clinical trials in October and tested the vaccine on dogs, cats, foxes, including Arctic foxes, and minks, among other animals. Mass production of the vaccine could begin in April, according to Savenkov.

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Source: Slashdot – Russia Unveils World’s First Coronavirus Vaccine For Dogs, Cats and Other Animal

The Pentagon announced that Microsoft has won a contract to build more than 120,000 custom HoloLens augmented-reality headsets for the U.S. Army. The contract could be worth up to $21.88 billion over 10 years, a Microsoft spokesperson said. From a report: The deal shows Microsoft can generate meaningful revenue from a futuristic product resulting from years of research, beyond core areas such as operating systems and productivity software. It follows a $480 million contract Microsoft received to give the Army prototypes of the Integrated Visual Augmented System, or IVAS, in 2018. The new deal will involve providing production versions.

The standard-issue HoloLens, which costs $3,500, enables people to see holograms overlaid over their actual environments and interact using hand and voice gestures. An IVAS prototype that a CNBC reporter tried out in 2019 displayed a map and a compass and had thermal imaging to reveal people in the dark. The system could also show the aim for a weapon. “The IVAS headset, based on HoloLens and augmented by Microsoft Azure cloud services, delivers a platform that will keep soldiers safer and make them more effective,” Alex Kipman, a technical fellow at Microsoft and the person who introduced the HoloLens in 2015, wrote in a blog post. “The program delivers enhanced situational awareness, enabling information sharing and decision-making in a variety of scenarios.”

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Source: Slashdot – Microsoft Wins US Army Contract for Augmented-Reality Headsets, Worth Up To .9 Billion Over 10 Years

Hitachi said on Wednesday it will buy U.S. software company GlobalLogic for $9.6 billion, including repayment of debt, as the Japanese industrial conglomerate pivots from electronics hardware to digital services. From a report: The deal is the biggest Japanese outbound acquisition of a U.S. hi-tech company on record, according to Refinitiv data. The acquisition is part of Hitachi’s ongoing business portfolio overhaul, which includes the $7 billion acquisition of ABB’s power grid business last year and a series of divestitures of its domestic hardware subsidiaries. Hitachi’s stock tumbled 7% on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, its sharpest daily fall in more than a year, on the news.

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Source: Slashdot – Hitachi To Buy US Software Developer GlobalLogic for .6 Billion