Man, where do I even start with this one? So, Palmer Luckey—yeah, that guy who went full VR pioneer with Oculus—now his company Anduril’s hooking up with Meta (formerly Facebook, in case you forgot) to whip up some crazy AR and VR gear for the US military. Sounds like a plot twist, right? Confession: I never thought tech and military stuff would merge this way.
Luckey, he launched Oculus in 2012. Fast forward a bit, Meta snatched it up in 2014 for over $2 billion. Imagine that! He hung around for a while until, well, politics got spicy, and they showed him the door. But Luckey doesn’t quit. Nope, he starts Anduril, a defense tech gig, and boom, multi-billion dollar jackpot. Kind of mind-blowing how stuff turns around.
Anduril didn’t just stick to the boring military toys like drones and sensors. Nah, they’re in the XR game too. Earlier this year, they took over Microsoft’s troubled IVAS program. It’s this wild ride trying to get AR helmets into the Army’s toolkit. Why helmets? Good question. I mean, maybe they want to feel like Iron Man or something.
Now, we’re back at the present, and Anduril’s doing a collab with Meta to make “the best” AR and VR systems. What’s that even mean? No clue. Anyway, they’re saying these gadgets are gonna turn soldiers into technomancers. Yeah, Luckey actually used that word. Sounds like sci-fi, right?
Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Andrew Bosworth, well, they used to not be on Luckey’s fan club list after his exit. But here they are, part of the announcement. Life’s funny like that—one minute you’re out, the next you’re high-fiving.
The partnership is set to play a massive part in the IVAS project, originally Microsoft’s playground but now seemingly Anduril’s show. Guess Meta’s tech will sprinkle some magic dust on it. Military tech and Facebook-ish vibes—what could possibly go wrong?
And that’s that. A tech mashup saga with a side of military ambition, jumping from VR dreams to battlefield schemes. Wonder if it’ll work out or turn into one giant facepalm. Guess we’ll see, huh?
