More info about the underlying technology: <a href="https://ai.facebook.com/blog/smart-camera-portal-advances" rel="nofollow">https://ai.facebook.com/blog/smart-camera-portal-advances</a><p>More info about the privacy settings: <a href="https://portal.facebook.com/privacy/" rel="nofollow">https://portal.facebook.com/privacy/</a><p>Disclosure: I work at FB, my team developed the underlying MaskR-CNN technology.
Many people here (myself included) are anti-FB due to privacy issues and then some, but I think this is pretty great.<p>The smart camera panning using facial recognition looks very useful. Right now I Facetime a lot with my iPad and will prop it up to chat with folks and often move around but then run back to come into the field of view. This solves that problem (for people who use Facebook and have a TV).<p>And Watch Party looks pretty great too. They've essentially taken a significant part of the "second screen" interaction and just embedded it in the primary screen. And it looks like they're doing it well. I can see this being a fun interaction.
I really dig this sentence in the FB press release masquerading as a TechCrunch article:<p>"If you can get past the creepiness, the new Portal TV let you hang out with friends on your home’s biggest screen."<p>Lets see what else we can apply this kind of logic:<p>"If you can get past the creepiness of having that weirdo look at you naked, he can give you cookies! You do want cookies, right?"<p>The real fun, however, will be when some 5 year old is naked in front of that thing and Facebook employees and/or contractors end up watching it in the name of machine learning followed by the record of it showing up on Pornhub. Though maybe at that point "think of the children" finally gets some people to go to jail. Maybe by that time we get someone like Warren ( regardless how misguided she is in some other aspects ) be the POTUS and push through the jail time for executives.
Honestly, being expatriated, I can kind of see the value in this - unfortunately I doubt the people I actually want to communicate with regularly will be adopters of this. The tech savvy being too untrusting of it, and the unsavvy not sure what $150 buys them over tools like Skype.
On an aside, and I know this is a shot in the dark, but does anyone know where to find a copy of the seemingly impromptu talk Zuckerberg gave some several years ago now, where he explained that he wanted Facebook to replace the internet?<p>It is one of those rather notable regrets that I did not save that video, even though it clearly struck me to recall it all this time. If I recall correctly, it was a seemingly impromptu talk outside in the open either at a charity or corporate socializing event. It was definitely not in some venue, let alone in a large one where he's basically parroting corporate talking points. Which may also explain the candor and seemingly single mention of his intentions that has stuck with me all this time.
Is anyone even buying the portal? Maybe it's the information bubble I travel in, but to me it seems Facebook has destroyed any trust that would make anyone ok with putting a video camera and listening device from them in your home.
I know there probably won't be much actual discussion on anything but privacy concerns here on HN (don't get me wrong, it's an important discussion to have, but it tends to push out literally everything else), but I did want to point out that this quote from the article is nice to see:<p>>We’ve done what we can in this latest generation of products, now with integrated camera covers that are hardware, indicator lights when the microphone is off, and form factors that are less obtrusive and blend more into the background of the home.<p>I actually really like the idea of a dedicated camera device for communicating with family and friends who aren't nearby. And I've been looking for something that lets us do things like play couch-coop games, watch movies, and just in general act like we are together while not physically being together.<p>For example, some of my closest friends and a bunch of my family are across the country from me. I've played DnD over video chat, i've watched birthday parties from a phone, i've tried to do the thing where we do a voice call over some service then try to start a streaming service like netflix at the same time so we can watch it together. All those options suck in their own way, from poor-quality mics, feedback, connection issues, needing to hold a phone or device or somehow prop it up, and taking up a device which you might otherwise want to use while with those people.<p>Granted the Portal looks like it won't get very far without buy-in from companies like Netflix and other streaming services (although that whole ecosystem is so fragmented now and it's only getting worse that i'm not sure my hope will ever actually come true). And without the ability to really integrate with games outside of the facebook ecosystem this is going to be a non-starter for couch-coop as well in most cases.<p>I really like the idea, but Facebook isn't going to be able to build a better Netflix and a better game console AND be the only one doing video chat with those products. They have the chat/messaging side, but IMO that's not enough to really pull me toward this ecosystem, and I've been looking for something just like this for a long time now. Unfortunately, walled gardens are probably going to kill this just like they've killed countless other things.
They've solved some real business problems here and there's a lot of cool engineering tech. I'm surprised this is buried so far that I had to use HN search to find it. Unfortunately the fact that this comes from Facebook is the albatross hanging around this product's neck as illustrated by most of the comments on here.<p>I couldn't convince any of my friends or family to get one of the last-gen Portals even with the discounts. I still don't know anybody who actually has one.
What none of the privacy-related prose defense by Facebook addresses is the abundant value of the metadata that Facebook will be able to harvest. Check out what leaking even just the metadata can tell about you.[0]<p>[0]: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bM0PmwOlifE" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bM0PmwOlifE</a>
I can't find the article, but the "Facebook Showerhead" and "Facebook TV" were both joke products back in the early '10s. This is hilariously predictable.
If you accept the premise that Facebook is hemorrhaging users (or worried about hemorrhaging users), these sorts of products makes sense as a means to ensure you ALWAYS have a active Facebook account.<p>Kind of like everyone has a Google account, either through personal gmail-esque services, a google-for-education account, an android device, a Google IoT device, their work account, etc.
"There will be no fight.
It will not be hard to keep an eye on the masses.
No one will be duped into giving up their rights.
The sad part actually, is that they will take it willingly. Gladly, and they will be happy with it."
-- Someone, somewhere, I can't remember.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they are not generating any revenue by selling it at this price point considering manufacturing, designing, hardware, and engineering costs.
Man, I have a hard time carrying a smartphone after what Snowden revealed to us. I'm surprised anyone would even think about putting one of these in their home.
i don't even understand the product after reading the article. what is the value of this?<p>its an always on teleconference with my facebook friends? no thanks.