Latest news with #IntegratedVisualAugmentationSystem
CNBC
2 days ago
- Business
- CNBC
Meta makes a big move into defense. Here's how it could start to matter for investors
Meta's expensive bet on virtual and augmented reality technology is making its way to the Pentagon. Investors who have been worried about when all that spending will pay off should feel a little bit better now. Meta announced Thursday that it is partnering with defense-technology company Anduril to create VR and AR devices such as headsets for the U.S. Army — and the news piqued our interest for a few reasons. For starters, the privately held Anduril was started by none other than Palmer Luckey, the founder of Oculus, which Meta acquired in 2014 for $2 billion to kickstart its ambitions in the world of VR technology. Luckey had an acrimonious split with the company then known as Facebook in 2017, but now they're back on working terms. But, as investors, the main reason to care is that working with Anduril could be a boon for Meta's Reality Labs division — home to its VR and AR teams, along with CEO Mark Zuckerberg's "metaverse" ambitions more broadly. Reality Labs has racked up cumulative operating losses north of $60 billion since late 2020, including a hefty $4.2 billion loss in the company's first quarter. In recent years, Wall Street has generally given Meta a pass on the Reality Labs losses — the stock is up more than 430% since the start of 2023. To be sure, that follows a brutal 2022 in which Meta shares lost nearly two-thirds of their value, driven in part by investor concerns about Zuckerberg's aggressive spending. But since then, the market has largely glossed over the Reality Labs losses thanks to Zuckerberg's intense focus on efficiency across the entire company, including steep job cuts, and the strong performance of its core Facebook and Instagram businesses. At the same time, investors also have gained an improved understanding on where Zuckerberg's controversial metaverse vision fits into the grand scheme of things. While Zuckerberg's north star may still be some form of the metaverse — a virtual world where people hang out, play, and shop — there is a recognition that the technology needed to get us there is artificial intelligence. AI, of course, has very real-world applications today, and Meta is investing heavily in it. AI is already delivering improvements to its bread-and-butter advertising business through improved ad targeting. Meta's Reality Labs has picked up some smaller successes along the way, most notably the AI-infused smart glasses made in collaboration with Ray-Ban. But, as the first-quarter results showed, the glasses haven't led to a materially improved financial picture for that division. And because we've seen Wall Street grow anxious before over the Reality Labs losses, we wouldn't be surprised to see it happen again without a better understanding of its future. That's where teaming up with Anduril comes into play. The partnership revolves around the U.S. government's Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) contract. This 10-year, $22 billion contract was initially awarded to Club name Microsoft in 2021. In late 2024, Microsoft partnered with Anduril to incorporate the latter's "Lattice" operating system onto Microsoft's mixed reality HoloLens platform. Then, earlier this year, Microsoft opted to hand control of the contract over to Anduril, giving it "oversight of production, future development of hardware and software, and delivery timelines," according to a press release. In exchange, Microsoft's Azure became Anduril's preferred cloud-computing destination for all IVAS-related workloads and Anduril's AI technologies. Anduril has named its next-generation IVAS product EagleEye. We're not arguing that the Anduril partnership will be a financial needle mover in the near term. However, if the effort proves successful — and betting against either Zuckerberg or Luckey has never proven a good bet — it provides a pathway to generate a stable source of Reality Labs sales from the U.S. government, and that means operating losses in the division should improve, assuming expenses remain under control. The move should also help further diversify the company's overall revenue stream, which is almost entirely reliant on social media ads, in the years to come. While Meta has proven to still be a fantastic outlet for advertisers, revenue diversification in the era of AI is a good thing to see. Consumer behaviors are already evolving — consider the way hundreds of millions of people are turning to AI chatbots, threatening online ad competitor Alphabet's core internet search business — and who knows what other changes could be in store. At a higher level, Meta's work with Anduril points to a continued shift in the private company/government partnerships. Some Silicon Valley tech giants have historically been hesitant to contract with the U.S. military out of fear of retaliation from consumers, employees, or both. However, we are now seeing top U.S. tech companies become more open to government partnerships. Indeed, late last year, Meta said it made its Llama AI model " available to U.S. government agencies and contractors working on national security applications." Zuckerberg also has taken steps to improve his relationship with President Donald Trump. In an interview on the Core Memory podcast released shortly after Thursday's news became public, Luckey shared some interesting thoughts on how Anduril can leverage all the money that Meta has so far invested to build products like the Ray-Ban glasses and Quest headsets: "What we're doing is working with Meta to take the building blocks that they've invested enormous amounts of money and expertise in, and we're able to use those building blocks in EagleEye without having to recreate them ourselves. There's things that Anduril probably could do if we were willing to put billions of dollars of taxpayer money into it. I think we could convince the Army to give us a lot of money to recreate these things, but why would you do that when they've already been made? Why spend five years doing something when it's already been done in the consumer sector? ... They do have a lot of intellectual property and building blocks that they've built that are just as useful on the battlefield as they are on the head of any consumer." That's not to say that Meta is going to start developing military-grade hardware, but this does offer up an opportunity to further monetize its massive investment in research and development (R & D) by licensing out whatever consumer-grade hardware and software may be useful to Anduril as it looks to build out the final product. On the same podcast, Luckey said Anduril and Meta have already been working closely together for the better part of a year, relying entirely on private funding for the initiative during that time. This is particularly notable because it suggests that Meta does not need to ramp up hiring overnight to handle the work with Anduril, potentially adding expenses to Reality Labs. It's already been ongoing. Bottom line Meta's partnership with Anduril represents an encouraging — albeit incremental — move in addressing the large Reality Labs losses, which could fuel additional earnings growth for the company. Just how significant a contribution this effort becomes, of course, depends on Anduril's ability to make EagleEye a success with widespread U.S. military adoption. On the podcast, Luckey said Anduril's intent is to deliver first prototypes to the Army this year, "if all goes according to plan the way that I hope." So, as with the Ray-Ban glasses, we may not see the fruits of this effort on Meta's next earnings report or even the next few after that. But there is now a more clear path for Reality Labs to start pleasing skeptical investors. (Jim Cramer's Charitable Trust is long META and MSFT. See here for a full list of the stocks.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust's portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Meta Partners With Anduril to Develop XR Headsets for US Military
This story was originally published on Social Media Today. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily Social Media Today newsletter. Yeah, this sounds totally normal and safe and not a risk to anybody or anything at all, while also being totally on-brand for 2025. Today, Meta, in partnership with XR company Anduril, has announced a new project which will see the two companies design new VR and AR elements for American military troops. As per Anduril: 'Anduril and Meta are partnering to design, build, and field a range of integrated XR products that provide warfighters with enhanced perception and enable intuitive control of autonomous platforms on the battlefield. The capabilities enabled by the partnership will draw on more than a decade of investment by both companies in advanced hardware, software, and artificial intelligence.' So Meta's now building tech to help the U.S. Defense Force in field battles. Sounds fine, all good, should be a good use of Meta's data. And the deal does, of course, make logical sense. Meta's made significant advancements in AR and VR technologies, especially in regards to compacting the key elements of such into smaller, more lightweight units, primarily to enhance consumer utility. Anduril, meanwhile, is focused on developing the next generation of military technology, and was founded by former Meta VR chief Palmer Luckey, who brings vast expertise and experience on this front. Though Luckey also has a controversial history, which includes being fired from Meta back in 2016 for making donations to a questionable pro-Trump group. Well, Luckey claims that was the reason, though Meta has refuted the idea that his political leanings were to blame for his unscheduled departure. But either way, Meta and Luckey moved away from each other due to differences in opinion of some sort, which they're now seemingly willing to work through as part of this new project. So what, exactly, will Meta and Anduril be working on? According to The Washington Post, the main initial focus will be a new military headset, as part of a project called 'EagleEye.' Anduril, which took over development of the U.S. Army's Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) from Microsoft in February, is looking to advance the project beyond Microsoft's original version, which had been built upon Microsoft's HoloLens 2 device. The Anduril version will incorporate night-vision and thermal-sensing, along with advanced augmented reality capabilities. Which is where Meta comes in. As noted, Meta has already developed a range of new chips and processing units for its coming AR glasses, and has made significant advances in compact AR tech. Meta's main aim with this is to build AR glasses that can be worn around in your day-to-day life, reducing weight, while also making them more stylish looking. And while style is less of a concern in combat situations, weight and processing power is important, which is why the new partnership with Anduril makes sense. It just feels a little off to be letting Meta into the military, right? Like, they already have all of our data, and they're building AI systems on the back of such. If there were ever a pathway to T-800 type Terminator robots, this could well be it (T-800 being the Arnold type, not the shapeshifting T-1000). Sci-fi hypotheticals aside, the partnership will be beneficial, and both Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg and Luckey have expressed their excitement in working with each other again. So, soon soldiers will be able to post IG Stories updates from the field, by simply speaking a few commands into their headset. Should be fine. Right?
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
In a victory for Palmer Luckey, Meta and Anduril work on mixed reality headsets for the military
On Thursday, Anduril and Meta announced news that feels like a fairy tale ending for Anduril co-founder, Palmer Luckey. The two companies are working together to build extended reality (XR) devices for the U.S. military, Anduril announced in a blog post. 'I am glad to be working with Meta once again,' Luckey is quoted as saying in the post. 'My mission has long been to turn warfighters into technomancers, and the products we are building with Meta do just that.' This partnership stems from the Soldier Borne Mission Command Next (SBMC) program, formerly called the Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) Next. IVAS was a massive military contract, with a total $22 billion budget, originally awarded to Microsoft in 2018 intended to develop Hololens-like AR glasses for soldiers. But after endless problems, in February the Army stripped management of the program from Microsoft and awarded it to Anduril, with Microsoft staying on as a cloud provider. The intent is to eventually have multiple suppliers of mixed reality glasses for soldiers. All of this meant that if Luckey's former employer, Meta, wanted to tap into the potentially lucrative world of military VR/AR/XR headsets, it would need to go through Anduril. The devices will be based on tech out of Meta's AR/VR research center Reality Labs, the post says. They'll use Meta's Llma AI model, and they will tap into Anduril's command and control software known as Lattice. The idea is to provide soldiers with a heads-up display of battlefield intelligence in real time. Luckey is apparently feeling good about this reconciliation. He was, of course, famously fired from Facebook in 2017, about three years after Facebook bought his startup Oculus for $2 billion. This came after Luckey was embroiled in a brouhaha over his support for Donald Trump in his 2016 election. Luckey turned around and founded Anduril in 2017, with co-founders Brian Schimpf, Trae Stephens, Matt Grimm. An Anduril spokesperson tells TechCrunch that the product family Meta and Anduril are building is even called EagleEye, which will be an ecosystem of devices. EagleEye is what Luckey named Anduril's first imagined headset in Anduril's pitch deck draft, before his investors convinced him to focus on building software first. 'All of them had worked with me for years via Oculus VR, and when they saw the EagleEye headset in our first Anduril pitch deck draft, they pointed out that it seemed like I was sequencing things irrationally. They believed, correctly, that I was too focused on winning a pissing contest over the future of AR/VR, on proving that I was right and the people who fired me were wrong,' Luckey tweeted in February after winning the IVAS contract After Thursday's news, Luckey posted on X: 'It is pretty cool to have everything at our fingertips for this joint effort - everything I made before Meta acquired Oculus, everything we made together, and everything we did on our own after I was fired.' And to show that Luckey has really buried the hatchet, he said Anduril has even launched a Facebook page. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
01-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
MicroVision, Inc. (MVIS): A Bull Case Theory
We came across a bullish thesis on MicroVision, Inc. (MVIS) on Twitter by Specter Capital. In this article, we will summarize the bulls' thesis on MVIS. MicroVision, Inc. (MVIS)'s share was trading at $1.24 as of March 31st. A close-up of a LiDAR-on-chip sensor mounted in a consumer-grade electronic device. MicroVision (MVIS) is on the verge of a major breakout, yet the market remains oblivious. Palmer Luckey, the tech visionary behind Oculus VR and the founder of Anduril, has publicly expressed his belief in MVIS's technology, signaling a potential game-changing development. This isn't just casual interest—Luckey has been actively engaging with online discussions, closely monitoring sentiment around the company. Given his track record of revolutionizing industries and his growing influence in military-grade AR, his involvement suggests something significant is underway. At the center of this unfolding opportunity is the $22 billion IVAS (Integrated Visual Augmentation System) contract. Anduril has spent over a year positioning itself to take over the program from Microsoft, and MicroVision's technology could be the missing piece. With its high-quality LiDAR and AR-related tech, MVIS is uniquely suited to complement Anduril's ambitions. Despite this, the stock remains severely undervalued at $1.50, overlooked by Wall Street, and trading at a fraction of its potential worth. The setup is clear: either an acquisition or a major partnership between Anduril and MicroVision is imminent. Signs point to a decisive move by March, making the current sub-$2 price an attractive entry point with an asymmetric risk-reward profile. Even without a buyout, the stock is primed for an organic rerating as the market digests these developments. The combination of a revolutionary tech entrepreneur, a massive government contract, and an undervalued company creates a rare investment opportunity. MicroVision, Inc. (MVIS) is not on our list of the 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 11 hedge fund portfolios held MVIS at the end of the fourth quarter which was 5 in the previous quarter. While we acknowledge the risk and potential of MVIS as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than MVIS but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock. READ NEXT: 8 Best Wide Moat Stocks to Buy Now and 30 Most Important AI Stocks According to BlackRock. Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey. Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
28-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
VirTra Inc (VTSI) Q4 2024 Earnings Call Highlights: Navigating Challenges with Strategic Growth ...
Q4 Revenue: $5.4 million, down from $10.9 million in the prior year period. Full Year 2024 Revenue: $26.4 million, compared to $38.8 million in 2023. Q4 Bookings: $12.2 million, a 37% sequential increase from Q3 2024. Full Year 2024 Bookings: $29.6 million, a decline of $4.2 million year-over-year. Q4 Gross Profit: $3.7 million or 69% of total revenue. Full Year 2024 Gross Profit: $19.4 million or 74% of total revenue. Q4 Net Operating Expense: $4.2 million, a 13% increase from the prior year period. Full Year 2024 Net Operating Expense: $17.4 million, compared to $17 million in 2023. Q4 Net Loss: $0.9 million or negative $0.08 per diluted share. Full Year 2024 Net Income: $1.4 million or $0.12 per diluted share. Full Year 2024 Adjusted EBITDA: $2.9 million, compared to $12.4 million in 2023. Cash and Cash Equivalents: $18 million as of December 31, 2024. Backlog as of December 31, 2024: $22 million. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 5 Warning Signs with VTSI. Release Date: March 27, 2025 For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript. VirTra Inc (NASDAQ:VTSI) achieved sequential bookings growth in every quarter of 2024, indicating a strong recovery in demand and sales execution. The company closed the year with a $22 million backlog, positioning it well for revenue conversion as market conditions stabilize. VirTra Inc (NASDAQ:VTSI) secured international contracts, expanding its presence in Europe and Latin America, and recorded its first V-XR platform sale in Canada. The company has significantly expanded its scenario catalog and leveraged AI efficiencies to accelerate content production, enhancing its leadership in immersive training. VirTra Inc (NASDAQ:VTSI) completed the final development phase for the US Army's Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) program ahead of schedule, marking a significant milestone. Total revenue for the fourth quarter was $5.4 million, a significant decrease from $10.9 million in the prior year period, due to federal budget delays and grant distribution pauses. For the full year 2024, revenue was $26.4 million compared to $38.8 million in 2023, reflecting a challenging funding environment. Net operating expense for the fourth quarter increased by 13% from the prior year period, driven by investments in personnel and expanded sales and marketing efforts. The company reported a net loss of $0.9 million for the fourth quarter, compared to net income of $3.5 million in the same period of 2023. Federal grant disbursement delays have impacted near-term order conversion timing, creating uncertainty in revenue recognition. Q: Given the challenging funding environment, how long do you expect this softness to last? A: John Givens, CEO: We've been through these cycles before. The current environment is due to election-related uncertainties and frozen funding distributions. I anticipate that after a couple more quarters of assessments, the funding environment will stabilize and potentially improve for VirTra and similar companies. Q: What initiatives are you undertaking to navigate the current funding uncertainty? A: John Givens, CEO: Our sales team is actively assisting departments in navigating federal funding and grants. We've created a grant program to guide customers to appropriate funding sources. Additionally, I've met with policymakers to advocate for clearer funding processes, ensuring grants are structured to meet our customer needs. Q: Regarding the IVAS opportunity, how does the transition from Microsoft to Anduril impact VirTra? A: John Givens, CEO: The transition is positive for us. Anduril has extensive experience with government contracts, unlike Microsoft's commercial electronics model. Our product's strong performance has been recognized, and Anduril's involvement is expected to enhance contract management and execution. Q: Can you clarify if bookings have a secured funding source and how much of the $22 million backlog will be recognized in 2025? A: Alanna Boudreau, CFO: If we record it as a booking, the funding is secured. We expect the majority of the $22 million backlog to convert into revenue in 2025, although some may extend into 2026 or 2027 due to service contracts. Q: What is the market opportunity for the V-XR platform, and how do you see it impacting growth? A: John Givens, CEO: The V-XR platform fills a gap in our offerings, targeting smaller agencies with budget constraints. Price points range from $35,000 to $100,000. We anticipate significant adoption over the next two to five years, with the platform complementing our screen-based systems and expanding our reach into untapped markets. For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript. This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Sign in to access your portfolio
