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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.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @08:06AM (1 child)
There is a big difference between:
Stating support for political candidate X.
or
Secretly donating to an organization dedicated to spreading anti-candidate-Y internet memes.
One of these actions is an plain and direct statement. I respect a person for voicing that statement even if that statement might not be popular among a large segment of the population. Even better if there is properly argumented rationale behind it.
The other action is a simple mud-slinging technique, and instantly reduces my respect for you to rock-bottom. In addition, you are money to dis-proportionally increase you own personal influence on the democratic process, which I feel undermines the democratic process.
If you are an important public figure for a large organisation, then your public views and actions will reflect on that organisation. It is obvious that the organisation may want to distance itself from you once their reputation (and indirectly their revenue) is getting damaged as a result of your actions.
All that is without even considering the actual contents of the political views of the candidate that you support, which also may provide reasons for people or organisations to disassociate themselves from you if their views differ strongly from yours. As another poster put it, you may find it difficult to make career or even keep your job in a catholic hospital if you are openly pro-abortion. A gay bar will likely not want to hire you if you are prejudiced against those people. Similarly some tech startups with a liberal culture may not want anything to do with you if you openly support Trumps policies.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @03:21PM
And as always if your personal choices can be kept secret then such problems are usually swept under the rug. Only when it becomes public and reflect on the business do you have a real problem.