Facebook Disbands Secretive Research Lab Amid Reorganization (mashable.com) 25
Facebook has disbanded its secretive research lab, where the company developed new hardware like its Portal speakers and researched moonshot projects like brain computer interfaces. "Building 8, the division Facebook created in 2016 to house some of its most ambitious projects, has been disbanded and the projects have been redistributed to other groups within the social media company," reports Mashable. From the report: The change, which was first reported by Business Insider, marks the end of the "Building 8" brand, though the group's work will continue on. Now, thanks to BI, we know that behind the scenes Facebook has separated the Portal team into its own group, which oversees Facebook's other "unannounced hardware projects." Meanwhile, Building 8's researchers have been shuffled to Facebook Reality Labs (FRL), another new group at Facebook lead by Facebook's top VR researcher, Michael Abrash. The FRL group was created in May, around the same time Facebook announced a bigger reorganization among its top executives.
A Facebook spokesperson confirmed to BI that the Building 8 brand was no more, but said it continues to work on the same projects and hasn't laid off any employees as a result of the re-structuring: "Building 8 was the early name of the team building consumer hardware at Facebook. Building 8 is part of Facebook's AR/VR organization. Now that we're shipping, it's the Portal team. And Rafa Camargo is still leading the team; that has not changed. We also unified research looking at longer terms projects under one team, which became Facebook Reality Labs, which is also part of our AR/VR organization. This includes research projects like the Brain Computer Interface."
A Facebook spokesperson confirmed to BI that the Building 8 brand was no more, but said it continues to work on the same projects and hasn't laid off any employees as a result of the re-structuring: "Building 8 was the early name of the team building consumer hardware at Facebook. Building 8 is part of Facebook's AR/VR organization. Now that we're shipping, it's the Portal team. And Rafa Camargo is still leading the team; that has not changed. We also unified research looking at longer terms projects under one team, which became Facebook Reality Labs, which is also part of our AR/VR organization. This includes research projects like the Brain Computer Interface."
What? (Score:5, Insightful)
Facebook has disbanded its secretive research lab
Okay.
[This] marks the end of the "Building 8" brand, though the group's work will continue on. . . . the Building 8 brand was no more, but said it continues to work on the same projects
So they really didn't disband anything, but I'm sure this will change everything, just like when Comcast started calling themselves Xfinity.
This is just a stealth marketing piece for all of the crap Facebook is working on.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, they were planning to change their name to something else and then use “Facebook” to refer to just those people working on the website... but another company beat them to that concept. So all that was left was the tried-and-true reshuffling of the deck chairs.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
What kind of “brand” name is Building 8 anyway?
Kinda sorta like a brand named "Area 51".
Hey, if the US government is a little short of cash, and might need to "shutdown -h now" . . . maybe they could consider instead merchandising some "Area 51" stuff . . . ?
I'm sure that some folks out there would be interested in buying some "Area 51" T-shirts, pens and baseball caps made with genuine UFO alien materials . . .
Re: (Score:2)
"What kind of âoebrandâ name is Building 8 anyway? It sounds like something from 1984, a place where naughty employees are dragged off to, to be subjected to electroshock, rubber truncheons, and a cageful of face chewing rats."
All true, but at least there is cake.
EVERYTHING they do si for Ads. (Score:1)
facebook, Google, Yahoo!, LinkedIN, ...all of their R&D is to find ways to sells more ads, get more information about us, in order to pimp our data out.
They offer no value to humanity. I do quite well without ANY of those companies and then some.
Social media company? (Score:4, Informative)
Someone needs to contact Mashable and remind them that Facebook is an advertising company [slashdot.org], not a social media company.
"Senator, we run ads." - Mark Zuckerberg
Re: (Score:2)
"Senator, we run ads." - Mark Zuckerberg
"Senator, our ads run you!" - Mark Zuckerberg
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Zuckerberg should be in prison (Score:2)
Where he will not last 5 seconds.
Re: (Score:3)
Many mob bosses do just fine in prison - even continue to run their enterprises from there. And Zuck’s got the cash to buy up every guard and warden.
No news (Score:2)