Facebook Unveils Portal and Portal+ Smart Speakers With Video Calling Feature (cnbc.com) 83
Facebook on Monday unveiled a pair of smart speakers, complete with cameras and microphones, for your home. From a report: The devices, Portal and Portal+, directly challenge Amazon, Google and Apple in the fast-growing smart-speaker market with a unique approach that will emphasize video calling. It's Facebook's first hardware product outside the Oculus line of virtual-reality devices. To start a video call, users can say "Hey Portal, call ..." followed by the name of a connection on Facebook's Messenger service. These calls include entertaining augmented-reality features that can outfit users with cat hats or turn their living rooms into animated night clubs. Another feature is Smart Camera, which uses artificial intelligence and the devices' cameras to perfectly frame users on video as they move around while on a call.
[...] Besides video calls, the Portal devices can stream music from Spotify, Pandora and Amazon Music and video from Facebook Watch. Not included at launch are services like Apple Music, YouTube, Netflix, Hulu or HBO Now. The devices come equipped with Amazon's Alexa voice assistant and the many skills available on that service, allowing them to ask questions like "What's the weather?" or "How are my teams doing?" [...] The company is taking preorders for the devices now and will begin shipping them early next month. The Portal, which features a 10-inch screen, is available for $199 while the Portal+, which has a long, 15.6-inch screen, is priced at $349. WashingtonPost reports that the device follows the person in their house: What's unique about Facebook's device is the tech it uses to make the video calls look good. Think of it as a personal cinematographer: A 12-megapixel camera -- equivalent to most phones -- identifies the shape of people within its 140-degree field of view and pans and zooms to make sure they're all always in the frame. You can wander around the room, do chores, Jazzercise, play with the kids or whatever. (Or, if you want, you can tap on the face of one person and the Portal camera will track just them.)
[...] Besides video calls, the Portal devices can stream music from Spotify, Pandora and Amazon Music and video from Facebook Watch. Not included at launch are services like Apple Music, YouTube, Netflix, Hulu or HBO Now. The devices come equipped with Amazon's Alexa voice assistant and the many skills available on that service, allowing them to ask questions like "What's the weather?" or "How are my teams doing?" [...] The company is taking preorders for the devices now and will begin shipping them early next month. The Portal, which features a 10-inch screen, is available for $199 while the Portal+, which has a long, 15.6-inch screen, is priced at $349. WashingtonPost reports that the device follows the person in their house: What's unique about Facebook's device is the tech it uses to make the video calls look good. Think of it as a personal cinematographer: A 12-megapixel camera -- equivalent to most phones -- identifies the shape of people within its 140-degree field of view and pans and zooms to make sure they're all always in the frame. You can wander around the room, do chores, Jazzercise, play with the kids or whatever. (Or, if you want, you can tap on the face of one person and the Portal camera will track just them.)
Where do I sign up? (Score:5, Funny)
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But it can make it look like you are in an animated night club
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Oh my god!! Really?!! *rushes off to order a dozen*
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All twelve will be infected so that I can watch you in 3-2-1....
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I know! I hope they integrate snapchat filters as well! For those people too lazy to actually put a damn costume on :)
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Or a feature to add mustaches to faces. [youtube.com]
Stalkerbook (Score:2)
Stalker loves you just wants to help you.
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Score: 5, Sarcasm
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Score: 5, Sarcasm
Homer, I can hear your sarcasm from inside the house, and the dishwasher is on. What's going on?
Strange parallel reality, indeed ... (Score:1)
I don't know what planet these "people" live on, but it's definitely not Earth and these are definitely not humans. ... and the swarm lifeform.
Not to denigrate alternative life styles, but I think we are at the verge of two types of lifeforms separating.
The individual
Classical homo sapiens always was a bit of a swarm-type due to being social, but it seems to really diverge here. I see so many "people" who openly glorify passive-thinking and passive-living and actually seem to like submitting to being merely
Re:Where do I sign up? (Score:4, Funny)
The UK is planning to meet it's 2020 emissions target by a combination of wind, solar and harnessing the inexorably rotating coffin of George Orwell.
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Just what I want: A closed platform with microphones, cameras, and Facebook spying on me 24/7.
It's really not that bad, Facebook has provided a way to disable data collection. In the web interface, just go to "Settings", then "IO Config", nav your way down to the middle of the page to "Data Collection Settings", in that dialog find the "Other Settings" button, and in the middle menu choose "Permissions", then "Facebook Permissions", then hover over the icon shaped like a vaccuum (but don't hover too long or you have to restart this whole process!), then choose one of the options they have, either "
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Thanks for that, now I feel totally assured that if I follow the instructions Facebook will NEVER abuse my privacy or use any data about me. I can sleep soundly at night now.
Anyway, what is this Facebook that everyone is talking about ?
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Then there were those VR glasses, whatever happened to them? Did they ever come out?
Nope, VR turned out to be a scam. Also, Hillary turned out to not actually be evil (go figure), Trump's apparently a nice guy, after all (it was just a show)... but Musk... well, the Model 3 is actually only 1/10th scale... and those SpaceX "launches" were rendered using the same analog computers at Wright-Patterson that were used to fake the moon landings.
Any further questions?
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It's funny, because he's also one of those paranoid guys with a large collection of guns who thinks the government is tracking him and is going to try to take his guns away.
They should just offer him an exchange for free Amazon speakers
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Virtual +1 Funny.
Re:Who is actually using smart speakers? (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's an idea, Slashdot. Since the "Funny" mod is not supposed to count toward karma or whatever, how about making this moderation a separate score?
Example: (Scores: +3 Informative, +27 Funny)
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That certainly would make moderation a lot more fair, but you can just get used to it. Save your jokes until you've got a really funny one. I have lost over a dozen karma on a single post due to a mod war involving lots of funny mods, but it's all just part of the game.
You do know Slashdot is just a MMORPG, don't you?
Speakers are not smart (Score:2)
these are listening devices with a voice interface from a search engine. the speakers themselves are speakers, not smart speakers.
If you want to see an actual speaker that is smart look at the apple homepod. that one actually does use sophisticated intelligence to improve the sound.
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that would be a smart microphone not a smart speaker. And it's a limited sort of smart, just looking for correlation between microphones. It is not really smart in t he same way as the homepod is which is actually smart in the speaker part of this. (the homepod listens to the reflected sounds then usies this to adjust for room dynamics not just directionality.)
Will there be cake? (Score:3)
Re:Will there be cake? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, they'll tell you there will be cake, but it will be a lie.
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You will be baked, and there will be cake.
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If it is, it would give them about 10% marketshare in the U.S.A. [wikipedia.org].
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You should buy the yellow no-name brand at Maxi, it's much better than the Dollarama stuff.
Portal, huh? (Score:1)
I know we’re a cynical lot here, but - I can’t picture most “normal” people buying this, even if they’re enameled of Facebook. They’ve already got the app on their phones and tablets.
And the camera follows you around, keeping everyone in focus.... not creepy at all.
(I suppose this is where I sneakily mention deleting my Facebook account 4 or so years ago)
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When will Cave Johnsons exploding lemons be released
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And I suppose this is where I mention that Facebook probably only disabled your account but it's still in there somewhere. Me? I never had a Facebook account. Well, except for my shadow profile of course, but I can't control what Facebook does, only limit what they get from me.
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And the camera follows you around, keeping everyone in focus.... not creepy at all.
You could make a skin that looks like an old timey portrait painting with the tracking cameras for the eyes so they can follow you as you move.
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The day they come up with VR that shows you cute anime girls as assistants following you everywhere is the day this will take off.
Example:
Miku: Anata wa 10: 00 No kaigi o motte imasu.
Me: What? Come on, Miku! I don't speak Japanese!
Only one reason to buy these (Score:2)
At first I thought, no.
Then I thought, Hell no.
Then I thought - what about buying one of these speakers and putting on an act whenever I was around them, to feed it completely false data? Like a looped recording that asked for the latest whereabouts of Salman Rushdie and/or Hitler every few minutes or something.
That would be amusing but sadly I don't have that kind of free time.
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or point it at your TV, and then raise a notification to your tv provider that facebook is stealing their licensed property.
I'll never buy this (Score:2)
I hate Facebook and I'll never buy this or any other "smart speaker" thingamajig.
That said, I have to say that the "Smart Camera" is impressive.
"Smart speakers" (Score:3)
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Hey! (Score:2)
Some actual good uses (Score:2)
In long term care facilities to keep the orderlies monitored
Instead of just an ankle bracelet, also install them in the homes of people on probation (convicted felons have limited civil rights anyway)
For senior citizens living on their own. "I've fallen, and I can't get up!"
In stores to monitor pilferage.
Re:Some actual good uses (Score:4, Funny)
For senior citizens living on their own. "I've fallen, and I can't get up!"
'Dialing America's Funniest Home Videos. Please wait.'
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These are good uses for remote-view cameras. These are not good uses for Facebook operated remote-view cameras.
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Catch up please - devices that can do that stuff have been on sale for decades.
Trusted Facebook (Score:2)
Never mind Zuck lied before congress about shadow profiles.
Equifax (Score:2)
I feel like stirring up shit. (Score:2)
That, and he's right of course.
Facebook robots with cameras to track humans inside their own homes [infowars.com]
Hey, whipslash, you're missing out! (Score:2)
First Amazon, now Facebook... I'm anxiously awaiting the announcement of a Slashdot smart cam that I can buy.