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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: 2) by edIII on Wednesday June 07 2017, @06:16PM
Uh, huh. Not so fast.
This is why I don't like talking about border security, because the conversation instantly gets fucked with border usage. Immigration and trade tariffs are separate issues. I have the opinion, that if everyone coming into the country were tracked and given a visa of some kind, then it would be impossible to have cheap illegal labor. Meaning, that our guests could not be abused in such a fashion. I'm also of the opinion to open up immigration and the quotas more to allow people to move back and forth more, not less. I don't care if they come here, I actually want them to come here, and I don't want them abused. How do you have illegal labor when that illegal isn't illegal, can stand up and give them the finger, and is legally entitled to find work and pay taxes? As it stands right now, they are the perfect abused work force that creates pressure from below the American worker that reduces wages overall. You're wrong. The elites cannot chase cheap labor with the border I'm proposing, and that more freedom and movement and rights exist for people, not less.
That's all that it is. Proper competition. With a border like I am talking about, everything that matters is redirected towards choke points. Goods will be funneled towards ports that have the staffing and technology to be analyzed and have tariffs assessed. Tariffs only need to be designed to bring all goods and services within reasonable competition of local goods and services. How do they elites go from country to country fucking it up when they bring back a widget and find that it is instantly assessed tariffs designed to bring it to 101% of the local cost? We still have competition, and local manufacturers are not competing with the business environments found elsewhere in the world. It doesn't matter what the elites do with outside goods, as long as local manufacturers and mom and pop businesses are healthy again. 11 million illegals are not killing our economy and way of life, but the elites ARE. One is a bigger threat.
As for the security, it's not draconian or anything. If you want to cross the border you will see signs telling you to check-in at a checkpoint, or will direct you to a safe place to cross the border. Anybody trying to cross the border surreptitiously at a "deserted" area, probably either needs help, or a military intercept. There are plenty of safe and nice places to cross the border. Everywhere else can get a military response, and should. Which is not to imply an ass-whooping by overzealous Border Patrol, but a quick and decisive intercept of who and whatever it is that is crossing outside of the approved areas. Since I envision a border capable of checking people in with the appropriate technology anyways, and immigration from Mexico is in actuality going the other way, border crossings that need to be investigated are greatly lessened.
The border I speak of is to provide security and assessment of tariffs, so you're wrong about who would say thank you.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.