Hey followers! Let’s dive into an exciting story blending tech, defense, and a splash of redemption.

Palmer Luckey, the founder of Oculus and now head of Anduril Industries, has teamed up again with Meta to develop advanced extended reality (XR) headsets for the U.S. military. This partnership feels like a fairytale ending for Luckey, who faced some bumps in his past.

The collaboration stems from the Soldier Borne Mission Command Next program, previously called IVAS Next, which was a massive Pentagon project with a $22 billion budget aimed at creating AR glasses for soldiers. Microsoft originally won the contract to develop the Hololens-like devices but faced lots of setbacks. In February, the Army took over from Microsoft and awarded the project to Anduril, with Microsoft remaining as a cloud provider.

This move opened the door for Meta, Luckey’s former employer, to participate through partnerships with Anduril. The devices will leverage Meta’s Reality Labs AR/VR research, including their Llma AI model, combined with Anduril’s command software, Lattice, to give soldiers real-time battlefield updates via heads-up displays.

Interestingly, Luckey, who was famously ousted from Facebook after the Oculus acquisition over political issues, expressed happiness about this reconciliation. He shared that the joint effort brings together all his past work, from Oculus VR projects to post-Facebook endeavors, under one ecosystem called EagleEye — a name from Anduril’s early headset ideas.

Anduril’s spokesperson revealed that EagleEye is meant to be a comprehensive system of devices, emphasizing Luckey’s focus on building an integrated ecosystem rather than just hardware. Despite past disagreements, Luckey has publicly celebrated the collaboration, even launching a Facebook page for Anduril.

In essence, this partnership signifies a new chapter, blending military tech ambitions with veteran expertise from one of the industry’s most controversial figures. It’s a testament to how past conflicts can be left behind when innovation and purpose come together.