Latest news with #Oculus
The Verge
2 days ago
- Business
- The Verge
Posted May 29, 2025 at 2:05 PM EDT
Dumb and dumberer. Mark Zuckerberg and Palmer Luckey have buried the hatchet after Zuckerberg fired Luckey in 2017, so they can build virtual and augmented reality gear for the military. Oculus made, of course, the most successful VR headset and was also a tremendous flop for Meta. Anyway, here's the WSJ story about their new team-up. Time and money heal all wounds, I guess?
The Verge
20-05-2025
- The Verge
We tried on Google's prototype AI smart glasses
Here in sunny Mountain View, California, I am sequestered in a teeny tiny box. Outside, there's a long line of tech journalists, and we are all here for one thing: to try out Project Moohan and Google's Android XR smart glasses prototypes. (The Project Mariner booth is maybe 10 feet away and remarkably empty.) While nothing was going to steal AI's spotlight at this year's keynote — 95 mentions! — Android XR has been generating a lot of buzz on the ground. But the demos we got to see here were notably shorter, with more guardrails than what I got to see back in December. Probably, because unlike a few months ago, there are cameras everywhere and these are 'risky' demos. First up is Project Moohan. Not much has changed since I first slipped on the headset. It's still an Android-flavored Apple Vision Pro, albeit much lighter and more comfortable to wear. Like Oculus headsets, there's a dial in the back that lets you adjust the fit. If you press the top button, it brings up Gemini. You can ask Gemini to do things, because that is what AI assistants are here for. Specifically, I ask it to take me to my old college stomping grounds in Tokyo in Google Maps without having to open the Google Maps app. Natural language and context, baby. But that's a demo I've gotten before. The 'new' thing Google has to show me today is spatialized video. As in, you can now get 3D depth in a regular old video you've filmed without any special equipment. (Never mind that the example video I'm shown is most certainly filmed by someone with an eye for enhancing dramatic perspectives.) Because of the clamoring crowd outside, I'm then given a quick run-through of Google's prototype Android XR glasses. Emphasis on prototype. They're simple; it's actually hard to spot the camera in the frame and the discreet display in the right lens. When I slip them on, I can see a tiny translucent screen showing the time and weather. If I press the temple, it brings up — you guessed it — Gemini. I'm prompted to ask Gemini to identify one of two paintings in front of me. At first, it fails because I'm too far away. (Remember, these demos are risky.) I ask it to compare the two paintings, and it tells me some obvious conclusions. The one on the right uses brighter colors, and the one on the left is more muted and subdued. On a nearby shelf, there are a few travel guidebooks. I tell Gemini a lie — that I'm not an outdoorsy type, so which book would be the best for planning a trip to Japan? It picks one. I'm then prompted to take a photo with the glasses. I do, and a little preview pops up on the display. Now that's something the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses can't do — and arguably, one of the Meta glasses' biggest weaknesses for the content creators that make up a huge chunk of its audience. The addition of the display lets you frame your images. It's less likely that you'll tilt your head for an accidental Dutch angle or have the perfect shot ruined by your ill-fated late-night decision to get curtain bangs. These are the safest demos Google can do. Though I don't have video or photo evidence, the things I saw behind closed doors in December were a more convincing example of why someone might want this tech. There were prototypes with not one, but two built-in displays, so you could have a more expansive view. I got to try the live AI translation. The whole 'Gemini can identify things in your surroundings and remember things for you' demo felt both personalized, proactive, powerful, and pretty dang creepy. But those demos were on tightly controlled guardrails — and at this point in Google's story of smart glasses redemption, it can't afford a throng of tech journalists all saying, 'Hey, this stuff? It doesn't work.' Meta is the name that Google hasn't said aloud with Android XR, but you can feel its presence loom here at the Shoreline. You can see it in the way Google announced stylish eyewear brands like Gentle Monster and Warby Parker as partners in the consumer glasses that will launch… sometime, later. This is Google's answer to Meta's partnership with EssilorLuxottica and Ray-Ban. You can also see it in the way Google is positioning AI as the killer app for headsets and smart glasses. Meta, for its part, has been preaching the same for months — and why shouldn't it? It's already sold 2 million units of the Ray-Ban Meta glasses. The problem is even with video, even with photos this time. It is so freakin' hard to convey why Silicon Valley is so gung-ho on smart glasses. I've said it time and time again. You have to see it to believe it. Renders and video capture don't cut it. Even then, even if in the limited time we have, we could frame the camera just so and give you a glimpse into what I see when I'm wearing these things — it just wouldn't be the same.
Broadcast Pro
19-05-2025
- Business
- Broadcast Pro
Vuz secures IFC investment in $12m pre-series C round
IFC investment supports VUZ's international expansion, following precedent in scaling telecom and media ventures across the world. Vuz, the immersive media platform, has announced a strategic investment from the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, as part of its $12m Pre-Series C funding round. This marks a significant milestone for Vuz as it accelerates its global push in immersive live streaming, AI-powered content delivery, and spatial media experiences spanning sports, entertainment, and the creator economy. With more than $1tn in global assets and commitments, the IFC joins a lineup of key investors including Al Jazira Capital, Crosswork VC Success Fund, several existing backers, and major Saudi family offices. This round strengthens Vuz's global footprint and positions the company to scale in fast-growing markets such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Africa, Asia, and the United States. The partnership with IFC—known for backing transformative companies like deep market expertise and a global track record in telecom and digital media, particularly across emerging economies. It aligns with IFC's goal of advancing digital inclusion and supporting creative industries that drive sustainable economic development. Vuz, which achieved EBITDA profitability in 2024 and recorded 80% year-over-year gross profit growth, now hosts over 30,000 hours of immersive content that blends extended reality (XR), virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and AI-powered streaming. The platform features exclusive experiences with top-tier football clubs, sports leagues, global athletes, artists, and creators. It boasts more than 3bn screen views to date, with a target of surpassing 5bn by 2026. With 40 telecom integrations globally and 20 more underway, VUZ continues to expand its tech ecosystem through platforms like Apple Vision Pro, Oculus, TV devices, and its proprietary web-based immersive layer, VuzGo. Its innovations are protected by four global patents. Khaled Zaatarah, Founder of Vuz, added: 'We are honored to welcome IFC as a strategic investor. With IFC and the World Bank Group's track record in scaling telecom and digital media companies globally, and over $1tn in assets under management, this partnership sets the stage for massive global scale. Together, we'll bring immersive media to the world's fastest-growing markets.' 'This investment reflects IFC's commitment to creative industries as a driver of jobs and income in emerging markets. Vuz's tech edge and global reach align well with our mandate to support scalable platforms that empower creators', added Farid Fezoua, IFC Global Director for Disruptive Technologies, Services, and Funds. Vuz's creator network spans over 100 m people worldwide, with tools that support monetization, immersive storytelling, and fan engagement. With a strong investor base that includes e& capital, KBW Ventures, SRMG Ventures, Vision Fund, and other global institutional backers, Vuz is now pset to shape the future of immersive media at a global scale. 'This is the scale-up stage we've been building toward for years,' Zaatarah added. 'With a solid foundation, patented tech, and profitability achieved, we are ready to scale globally and define the future of media.' In addition to the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, and other recent strategic investors, Vuz is backed by a distinguished and globally diverse group of institutional partners. These include e& capital, KBW Ventures, Al Jazira Capital, DFDF, SRMG Ventures, Caruso Ventures, Shorooq Partners, Plug and Play Ventures, Hala Ventures, Vision Fund, Knollwood Investment Advisory, Panthera Capital, Faith Capital, WIN, Elbert Capital, Yasta Partners, AlTouq Group, Impact46, Media Visions, 500 Startups, DAI, Al Falaj, and DTEC Ventures (Oraseya Capital), along with notable tech leaders including Magnus Olsson, Samih Toukan, and Jonathan Labin — reflecting strong international conviction in VUZ's vision, performance, and global growth potential.
CBS News
18-05-2025
- Business
- CBS News
Tech billionaire Palmer Luckey wants to remake the U.S. military with autonomous weapons
Palmer Luckey on making autonomous weapons for the U.S. and its allies | 60 Minutes People thought flip flop- and Hawaiian shirt-wearing tech billionaire Palmer Luckey, 32, was nuts when he launched defense products startup Anduril Industries. There hadn't been a new company in the defense industry in any significant way since the end of the Cold War, but Luckey had his own vision for the future of warfare: one with autonomous, AI-powered weapons and a different business model than the five "prime" defense contractors in the U.S. "I've always said that we need to transition from being the world police to being the world gun store," he said. Who is Palmer Luckey? Luckey made his billions young. He grew up fascinated by electronics and spent a lot of time tinkering in his parents' Long Beach, California, garage. By age 19, that tinkering turned into virtual reality company Oculus. Luckey sold it to Facebook for $2 billion in 2014, but was fired by Facebook two years later. Palmer Luckey 60 Minutes "Everyone's got a different story, but it boils down to I gave $9,000 to a political group that was for Donald Trump and against Hillary Clinton," Luckey said. "To be a Trump supporter in 2016, you know, this was at the height of the election insanity and derangement in Silicon Valley. And so I think that a lot of people thought back then that you could just fire a Trump supporter." Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who attended President Trump's most recent inauguration, has denied that Luckey was fired for his political views. In 2017, Luckey says he left Silicon Valley, with hundreds of millions of dollars in the bank and a chip on his shoulder. "My gears were ground," he said. "I really wanted to prove that I was somebody, that I was not a one-hit wonder, and that I still had it in me to do big things." Luckey says he thought about starting companies to combat obesity or fix the prison system, but ultimately decided to break into the defense industry. "Everyone in the military has seen 'James Bond' movies and they all like Q," Luckey said. "I'm the wacky gadget man. I'm the guy who types on the computer and pushes up my glasses, and then gives them a strange thing to help them accomplish their mission." What Luckey sees as the future of warfare For decades, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman have dominated the defense industry. Typically, the companies present an idea to the Pentagon. If the Pentagon buys it, the government pays for the company to develop it, even if it goes over budget or over schedule. Luckey started Anduril to flip that procurement structure on its head. "The idea behind Anduril was to build not a defense contractor, but a defense products company," he said. The difference, he explains, is that contractors are paid to do the work whether or not it succeeds. "A products company has a very different mentality. You're putting in your own money. You're putting in your own time," Luckey said. His vision was to show up with a working product, not with a presentation describing how taxpayers would foot his bills for developing a product. Palmer Luckey and Sharyn Alfonsi 60 Minutes Luckey argues a lack of innovation in the defense sector means a Tesla has better AI than any U.S. aircraft and a Roomba vacuum has better autonomy than most of the Pentagon's weapons systems. He wants to change that. Part of Luckey's philosophy is that autonomous weapons ultimately promote peace by scaring adversaries away. "My position has been that the United States needs to arm our allies and partners around the world so that they can be prickly porcupines that nobody wants to step on, nobody wants to bite them," he said. Luckey does not believe the U.S. should be sending its military to other countries. Instead, he says, American-made products should go overseas. "I think that that's one of the reasons that autonomy is so powerful. Right now there are so many weapon systems that require manning," he said. "You know, if I can have one guy command and controlling 100 aircraft, that's a lot easier than having to have a pilot in every single one. And it puts a lot fewer American lives at risk." "Autonomy" does not mean remote controlled; once an autonomous weapon is programmed and given a task, it can use artificial intelligence for surveillance or to identify, select and engage targets. No operator needed. What Anduril is making Luckey's approach seems to be working for Anduril. The company says it will have secured more than $6 billion in government contracts worldwide by the end of the year. Some of Anduril's systems are already being used by the U.S. military and in the war in Ukraine. Right now, Anduril is working on the Roadrunner: a twin turbo-jet powered drone interceptor that can take off, identify and strike a drone. If it doesn't find a target, it can land and try again. Anduril also makes headsets that allow soldiers to see 360 degrees in combat. And there's an electromagnetic warfare system that can be programmed to jam enemy systems, knocking out drone swarms. The weapons can be synchronized on Anduril's AI platform, Lattice, Luckey said. The platform collects data from various sensors and sources — including satellites, drones, radar and cameras — allowing the AI to analyze, move assets and execute missions faster than a human. "It's the AI onboard all these weapons that makes it possible to make it so easy," he said. The largest weapon in Anduril's arsenal, a submarine called the Dive XL, works autonomously. A version 60 Minutes saw is the size of a school bus. "It's not remote-controlled by this computer," Luckey said. "It's doing it on the brain, on the submarine itself. So if I told it to go off and perform some mission that's monthslong, like, 'Go to this target, listen for this particular signature, and if you see this signature, run; if you see this one, hide; if you see this one, follow it,' it could do that all on its own without being detected, without communicating with it." Anduril says the Dive XL can travel 1,000 miles fully submerged. Australia has invested $58 million in the subs to help defend its seas from China. Fury 60 Minutes Anduril's most anticipated weapon, an unmanned fighter jet called Fury, has no cockpit, stick or rudder because there's no pilot. "The idea is that you're building a robotic fighter jet that is, you know, flying with manned fighters and is doing what you ask it to do, recommending things be done, taking risks that you don't want human pilots to take," Luckey said. Fury represents a big turning point for the company. Anduril was viewed by some inside the defense industry as a "tech-bro" startup until it beat out several of the prime defense contractors to make an unmanned fighter jet for the Air Force. Fury is scheduled to take its first test flight this summer. If the Pentagon awards Anduril a production contract for Fury it, like all of the company's products, will be made in the U.S. The ethics of autonomous weapons The secretary general of the United Nations has called lethal autonomous weapons "politically unacceptable and morally repugnant." Some international groups have referred to lethal autonomous weapons as killer robots. "If I am gonna argue with them, I usually poke it," Luckey said. "I'm like, 'OK, so do you think that NATO should be armed with squirt guns or slingshots?'" Luckey notes that all of Anduril's weapons have a "kill switch" that allows a human operator to intervene if needed. And while some find the idea of autonomous weapons scary, Luckey argues they're less scary than weapons systems without any level of intelligence. "There's no moral high ground to making a land mine that can't tell the difference between a school bus full of children and Russian armor," he said. "It's not a question between smart weapons and no weapons. It's a question between smart weapons and dumb weapons." As with many AI systems, some people also worry about what happens if artificial intelligence goes rogue. "I would say that it is something to be aware of. But in the grand scheme of things, things to be afraid of, there's things that I'm much more terrified of," Luckey said. "I'm a lot more worried about evil people with mediocre advances in technology than AI deciding that it's gonna wipe us all out."
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Palmer Luckey is in a 'B Boys Club' group chat. There's only 1 accomplishment that scores you an invite.
Palmer Luckey said he joined an exclusive group chat after selling Oculus to Facebook in 2014. The "B Boys Club" includes entrepreneurs who sold companies for at least $1 billion, Luckey said in a recent podcast interview. Conversations in the chat include questions about each other's spending habits, he added. It's a group chat with "the boys" — but you have to have sold a unicorn to get an invite. Palmer Luckey says he scored an invite to an exclusive group chat after he sold his virtual-reality startup, Oculus, to Facebook in 2014. The "B Boys Club" is a private message thread reserved for entrepreneurs who were able to pull off big business deals, Luckey said in a May 6 episode of Peter Diamandis' "Moonshots" podcast. "It's all boys who have sold a company for at least $1 billion," said Luckey, who sold Oculus for $2 billion. Luckey said that while women aren't excluded from the group, there aren't any who've closed acquisition deals for $1 billion or more. (Despite Luckey's disclaimer, there are some notable examples of female-founded startups being acquired for $1 billion or more, such as IT Cosmetics cofounder and CEO Jamie Kern Lima, who sold her brand to beauty giant L'Oréal for $1.2 billion in 2016.) BI reached out to L'Oréal in an attempt to ask Lima if she had ever received an invitation to the group chat. Based on the criteria laid out by Luckey, there are some other notable names in the tech and business world that would be eligible for a "B Boys Club" invitation. Like Luckey, Instagram founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, as well as WhatsApp founders Jan Koum and Brian Acton, all sold their companies to Facebook, now Meta, for at least $1 billion. A more recent potential addition is Slack cofounder Stewart Butterfield, who sold the platform to Salesforce for $27.7 billion in 2021. Some of the richest men in the world, however, including Luckey's old boss, Mark Zuckerberg, don't make the cut. Despite his reported $216 billion net worth, Zuckerberg wouldn't qualify because he never sold his company. The same goes for Bill Gates, Sam Altman, and Warren Buffett. Luckey didn't immediately respond to Business Insider's request for additional comment. As a decadelong member of the group, Luckey confirmed that the successful businessmen in the thread are indeed talking about money. Luckey, who's worth an estimated $2.5 billion after confounding the defense-tech startup Anduril, told Diamandis that he's tried to "shame" his fellow wealthy founders into doing more with their fortunes. He said he's asked the group chat, "Guys, you have so much money. Why are you not doing what you know is the right thing to do with this capital?" As far as what he means by "the right thing," according to Luckey, his groupmates should execute their vision of "how the world should be" themselves instead of trusting others, be it employees or nonprofits, to know what to do with their money. Luckey said he's managed to change some of his peers' perspectives on their spending, while others are content with driving vintage race cars. Not all ultrawealthy men aspire to be Batman and use their money to shape the world as they see fit, he said. "I'm not saying everyone should become a vigilante crime fighter, but why wouldn't you use your resources to do the thing that you know needs to be done?" Luckey said. Read the original article on Business Insider Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
