Many companies set up their own, secretive technology programs. A new report from CNBC outlines the drama behind its secretive hardware division, Building 8, and how it’s struggled to develop its own hardware to compete with the likes of Amazon and Google.
Facebook brought in former DARPA and Google technologist Regina Dugan to run the division, but she ended up leaving after only 18 months on the job. Facebook ultimately disbanded the hardware group in a year later in December 2018, and shifted its personnel and projects to other parts of the company.
Facebook initially became interested in a home assistant-type device shortly after Amazon launched its Echo speakers, and Dugan was brought onboard to help the company realize some of its hardware ideas. One of the projects a predecessor to the Portal called “Little Foot”, an iPad that moved towards a person in a room. As Facebook increasingly looked towards video, the Building 8 team began developing it as a video chat device. CNBC says that they experimented with a variety of sizes, including ones the size of a large television, and that “the ideal experience would be a wall-to-ceiling product.”
The report notes that Building 8’s secretive nature caused some resentment between it and other divisions within the company. It had an enormous budget, and when select Facebook staff members were invited to visit, to look at early prototypes, like the Portal, its brain-reading devices, and an AR project called Project Sequoia (which resembled “the hologram-like computers in ‘Iron Man’ movies), they were assigned an escort. Those visitors were invited to Building 8 with a slab of metal — which was machined on-site into a bottle opener when they arrived. They were then handed a bottle of beer. In December, the Building 8 team was renamed and its projects moved to other divisions.
Despite that turmoil, Facebook is currently still working on a variety of devices. It’s apparently working on a new version of the Portal including one rumored device code-named “Ripley”, which is apparently a camera that can be mounted on a television, turning it into the larger Portal devices that Facebook initially thought about. Facebook is rumored to be speaking with streaming services like Disney and Netflix about bundling their services with the device.
