In this bizarre turn of events, you’ve got Palmer Luckey, the guy who started Oculus, basically shaking hands with Meta again. It’s like watching an episode of a drama where characters who had a massive fallout suddenly decide to team up. Why? Well, they’re on a mission to craft “the world’s best AR and VR systems” for the military. You know, the folks with tanks and whatnot.
So, Luckey kicked off Oculus way back in 2012, getting everyone hyped about VR with these intense Rift headsets. Fast forward a bit, and Facebook (yep, now known as Meta) swooped in and snagged his company for a cool $2 billion in 2014. Luckey hung around under their roof for a while—still doing all things VR—until politics pushed him out. Some spicy drama, right? Anyway, he didn’t stay down. He went and set up Anduril, diving into defense tech and whatnot, pushing its worth up into the billions again.
And now, after hob-knobbing with Microsoft—oh yeah, they had this project called the Integrated Visual Augmentation System or IVAS (because who doesn’t love acronyms?)—Anduril’s taking the reins on making these AR helmets for the Army. Picture Iron Man-style headgear but for real soldiers.
Anyway, twist alert! Anduril and Meta are now partnered up, declaring they’re gonna churn out cutting-edge XR gadgets. It’s kind of like sci-fi, but they insist it’s practical, saving the military a ton of cash by repurposing commercial tech for combat. Interesting, right? Oh, and supposedly all funded through private money—not a tax dollar in sight. Hard to tell if that’s impressive or just expensive.
Luckey’s like, over the moon about collaborating with Meta again. He’s super into making soldiers into tech wizards or “technomancers”—never thought I’d hear that outside a video game.
Even Meta’s bigwigs, Zuckerberg and Bosworth, chipped in with some words about this reunion, though considering their past beef with Luckey, it feels just a little bit awkward? Maybe I’m just reading too much into it.
So, what’s the endgame you ask? Well, the grand plan seems to zero in on those IVAS headsets. Initially a Microsoft baby worth a jaw-dropping $20 billion. But now it’s like Meta and Anduril are the proud new stepparents. Who knew military AR tech could be this much of a soap opera?
Anyway, storytelling isn’t even the half of it. It’s more like watching the gears of tech and defense start spinning faster, mixing old rivalries and fresh alliances. Makes ya wonder what’s really next… or maybe not. Who knows what’ll catch my attention tomorrow.
