Facebook was going to unveil its smart speaker at its biggest developer conference in May this year. However, after the recent public outrage, the company has decided not to reveal any product right now. The report claims that Facebook will carefully examine the speakers and make sure it doesn’t violate any data privacy rules.
Recently, Facebook got pulled into a data leak scandal along with a British analytics firm for unlawfully sharing personal user data. Which in turn could have played a huge role in the US Presidential Elections. The controversy has sparked off a huge debate about social media and Facebook is at the helm of it. It makes sense for Facebook to not unveil a new product line at the point, as it may not be met with a lot of open minds and will be heavily scrutinised, irrespective of how secure it might be.
The report says:
Facebook’s hardware products are undergoing a deeper review to ensure that they make the right trade-offs regarding user data.
Even though the smart speaker was not going to be available for purchase before fall, it was planning to unveil the speaker in May. However, the company has now decided to lay off from any announcement until the public outrage cools off.
It is already a bit late in the smart speaker game, and delaying it further will not help its case. However, looking at the current situation and the kind of situation it is in, the decision might be essential, if not correct. Ever since the controversy, Facebook has lost over US$ 60 billion in market cap and many people have decided to delete their Facebook accounts. However, considering Facebook has an active monthly user base of 2.2 billion people, losing a few here and there won’t have a huge impact.
The smart speaker will go by the moniker of Portal. A previous report claims that it would have a 13 to 15 inch display. The speaker will respond to voice commands and use facial recognition technology. This is something the company has been taking very seriously off-late. WIth voice and facial recognition, it can provide a personalized experience to different people in the house.
The Portal could also be a part of Facebook’s plan to become the largest video streaming service. With a huge display and the ease of voice commands, the Portal could become a primary source of video consumption. That, along with its own video streaming service could be a good combination. You could read everything about its new streaming service, Watch here.