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posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday June 07 2017, @12:49AM   Printer-friendly
from the another-brick-in-the-wall dept.

Oculus co-founder Palmer Luckey, who left Facebook in March, wants to build a wall... with LIDAR sensors:

Palmer Freeman Luckey was the kind of wunderkind Silicon Valley venerates. When he was just 21, he made an overnight fortune selling his start-up, a company called Oculus VR that made virtual-reality gear, to Facebook for $2 billion in 2014.

But the success story took a sideways turn this year when Mr. Luckey was pressured to leave Facebook months after news spread that he had secretly donated to an organization dedicated to spreading anti-Hillary Clinton internet memes.

[...] And he has a new start-up in the works, a company that is developing surveillance technology that could be deployed on borders between countries and around military bases, according to three people familiar with the plan who asked for anonymity because it's still confidential. They said the investment fund run by Peter Thiel, a technology adviser to Mr. Trump, planned to support the effort.

In an emailed statement, Mr. Luckey confirmed that he was working on a defense-related start-up. "We are spending more than ever on defense technology, yet the pace of innovation has been slowing for decades," he wrote. "We need a new kind of defense company, one that will save taxpayer dollars while creating superior technology to keep our troops and citizens safer."

Also at BBC, CNET, Boing Boing, PCMag, and Engadget.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @02:52AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @02:52AM (#521728)

    Slavery has nothing to do with this discussion.

    Perhaps you are intoxicated on drugs or alcohol ? That could explain your impaired thinking.

  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @03:18AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @03:18AM (#521743)

    Easy there old chap, you have to read the quote at the top of the post for some context.
    Take it step by step, you'll be caught up in no time

  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday June 07 2017, @12:32PM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday June 07 2017, @12:32PM (#521856) Journal

    Slavery has nothing to do with this discussion.

    The grandparent might have skipped a couple of logic steps, but the point is that in the US, prior to 1863 or so, not only was slavery legal, but helping escaped slaves escape was very illegal. Yet people did that [wikipedia.org] anyway at considerable risk to themselves. So in rebuttal to the original assertion that one can't cherry pick laws to obey, we have a fine example of people refusing to obey what they considered immoral law. They successfully "cherry picked" which laws they would obey, which helped a lot of people, contrary to the original poster's assertion otherwise.

    The problem with that analogy is that I don't buy that there is a similarly great moral cause furthered by allowing illegal immigration. Instead, I think it's a variety of parties undermining this law for selfish reasons, such as pandering to immigrant votes (and in the long term creating more immigrant votes to pander to in a dynamic with positive feedback - probably the number one reason that there is and has ever been a backlash against illegal immigration in the US in the first place), cheap legally unprotected labor, or merely being cheaper and faster than legally applying for immigration to the US (and other parts of the developed world).