Alright, let’s dive into this. So, here’s a wild ride through Palmer Luckey’s latest escapade. Honestly, the saga just keeps getting more and more mind-bending. Palmer and Meta are now teaming up to craft the best AR and VR tech for the US military. Yeah, you heard that right.
Palmer, remember, was the brain behind Oculus back in 2012. That Rift headset kickstarted a whole new wave of VR madness. Meta, or Facebook back then, couldn’t resist and snapped up Oculus for over $2 billion in 2014. Crazy times, huh? Palmer stuck around with Meta for a bit until politics – not the fun kind – got him the boot. Long story short, he went on to start Anduril, which, by the way, is worth a ton now.
Anduril’s been busy cooking up XR tech alongside the usual military gadgets like drones. Recently, they decided to take over Microsoft’s troubled Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) project. It’s all about making AR helmets for the US Army. Imagine that.
And now? Anduril and Meta are playing in the same sandbox. Together, they’re in this quest to roll out some next-level XR gear that’ll give soldiers super senses and let them handle autonomous things on the battlefield like it’s magic. No government cash involved, apparently, which makes it even weirder.
Palmer’s pumped about working with Meta again. He talks about soldiers becoming “technomancers” — seriously, that’s what he said! Guess he’s envisioning a future where tech and magic are kind of the same thing.
Even Mark Zuckerberg and CTO Andrew Bosworth, who, let’s be honest, didn’t see eye to eye with Palmer last time, are on board with quotes to show they’re all on good terms again. There’s even a fresh pic of Palmer and Mark, cheesing it up for the camera. The internet just loves those kinds of moments.
The real task at hand is getting the headset right for the IVAS project — a massive $20 billion undertaking. Originally Microsoft’s territory, Anduril’s now taking charge and they’ve roped in Meta to sprinkle some of its fairy tech dust on this military adventure. Fascinating stuff, right?
