Facebook has begun to review its priorities, which will force it to abandon some of its products forever, after it gave up 11,000 employees.
Employees were told last Friday that the company is cutting back on non-essential hardware products, according to a report published by an agency.
And it was reported that the giant social network will abandon “Portal”, a series of smart speakers equipped with a screen that were released in 2018, and focus mainly on allowing people to make video calls with each other through the “Facebook Messenger” application, which is Equipped with a camera that follows the user during their movement and automatically zooms in, and is integrated with Alexa, the smart personal assistant provided by Amazon.
Meta, the parent company that owns Facebook, has re-identified Portal as a work-only device, but recent reports indicate that it will be withdrawn completely.
Meta states that its products are available until December 31, 2022, or until supplies run out. “We will make changes to better serve professional customers and will continue to sell Meta Portal devices only through December 31, 2022, or until supplies last,” the company said. And she adds that «the available features and applications may need to be developed. We will continue to support many of the experiences already offered on Meta Portal devices. We will be able to modify the content and functionality.”
According to «Russia Today», the company is also working to cancel its project on smart watches, and therefore, its plans to launch two smart watches will not see the light at all.
The smart watches, which the company has been developing since October 2021, were supposed to have built-in cameras, along with other more typical smart watch features, such as music playback, messages, notifications, and activity tracking.
Now, the unit of the company that worked on the smartwatch will focus instead on building augmented reality glasses, in preparation for Mark Zuckerberg’s ambitious “Metaverse” project.