Mark has said, ‘We’re going to connect all the people that have mobile phones right now.’ But we have to think beyond phones.” “With our mission to connect people, that’s not a mission that stops at mobile phones. “It’s not really about the hardware - it’s about people,” Bosworth said. For Facebook, Bosworth says, Portal helps its users connect in a more meaningful way than other video chat devices.
The company staged a number of in-home scenes in which its Portal devices might reasonably be plugged in, such as in the kitchen, on a shelf in the living room, or attached to your main television set.įacebook wants to get its Portal devices into the hands of more consumersĪt the event, Bosworth offered a live demo alongside Portal chief Ryan Cairns while talking up the company’s commitment to hardware. The news confirms reports about Facebook’s upcoming Portal refresh that began percolating earlier this summer.Īndrew “Boz” Bosworth, the head of augmented and virtual reality technology at Facebook, gave members of the press an early look at the devices Tuesday in an ornate Victorian home in the Pacific Heights neighborhood of San Francisco. The third device, a combined camera and microphone attachment for your television, also joins the lineup today under the name Portal TV. The larger of the two screens is called Portal, and represents a redesign of the previous year’s model, and the smaller one is known as Portal Mini. Facebook today announced three new products as part of its growing Portal family of smart home gadgets, including two smaller versions of its flagship video chat device.