After starting VR company Oculus, Palmer Luckey is looking to make a virtual border wall a reality.
And it doesn’t take a pair of high-tech goggles to see the potential controversy looming ahead.
Luckey, who sold his company to Facebook for $2 billion in 2014, has is developing a surveillance system that uses a range of sensors for perimeter security that’s being pitched to the U.S. government to boost border security.
The New York Times reports that Luckey’s new company is combining lidar, detection technology used in self-driving cars, with surveillance cameras and infrared sensors to create an intelligent system that detects threats on the ground and in the air. The system could be a cost-effective alternative to President Trump’s proposed border wall.
The Oculus creator was quietly ousted from his position at Facebook in March after news broke that Luckey made donations to Nimble America, a pro-Trump group devoted to spreading anti-Hillary Clinton content online.
“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,” the 24-year-old tech entrepreneur said in an email to the New York Times.
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