Facebook executives unveiled the new gadget
at a small event in San Francisco this week. In
addition to losing a few inches, Portal has been
redesigned to look less like a space-age gadget
and more like a picture frame.
The product is also launching in more countries
and will work with WhatsApp to make video
calls, in addition to Facebook’s Messenger app.
And will now stream Amazon Prime videos.
Facebook has tried to assuage privacy concerns
with the Portal. The service will not show ads,
but “we are using Facebook’s infrastructure, so
some data may inform ads on Facebook,” said
Andrew “Boz” Bosworth, vice president of virtual
reality and augmented reality. “But that’s not the
point of it, it’s not something that is going to be
material to Facebook.”
For instance, if someone makes a lot of video
calls on Portal, they might see ads for video
calling devices elsewhere. But Facebook says
it doesn’t use the content of the calls for ad
targeting, though Bosworth declined to commit
to never doing so in the future.
The Portal and the Portal Mini go on sale Oct. 15;
the screenless version ships on Nov. 5.