Facebook's New Gadget Is a Video-Chat Screen With a Camera That Follows You
Summary
Facebook plans to offer the gadgets on a stand-alone website in time for the holidays, and has a major marketing campaign in the works.If the Portals are successful, the company could encourage more people to use its social network regularly to keep in touch with friends and family, as well as for apps like Spotify and Pandora.The devices are built atop Facebook’s Messenger platform, and the communication software is hooked into a user’s web of Facebook connections.Last quarter, manufacturers shipped 16.8 million smart speakers , up 187 percent from the same period last year, according to the research firm Canalys.Rafa Camargo, Facebook’s vice president who oversees Portal, said that when his team said it wanted to work on a smart home product with a large screen, his peers reacted in disbelief — especially since Amazon and Apple were focused on speakers and not video.