If you're a company that makes robots, farm tools, security tech, or really anything that isn't a self-driving car, Waymo has a lidar to sell you. The autonomous tech company that started life in 2009 as Google's self-driving-car project announced today it's creating a new revenue stream by selling its custom-developed, short range laser sensors. It's a bit unexpected, considering Waymo waged a bruising legal fight with Uber to protect this most valuable of sensing technologies, but it also signals that Waymo is exploring business models that don't hinge on yanking the human from behind the wheel. Waymo started developing its own lidar in 2011, after deciding existing sensors--chiefly those created by Velodyne, the company that pioneered the automotive lidar market--weren't sufficient for its needs. Over the next eight years, it said during its lawsuit against Uber, Waymo put "tens of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of hours of engineering time" into its custom solution.