It Looks Like Facebook Is Also Building a Smart Speaker With Touch Screen (techcrunch.com)

From a report: Facebook may launch its own smart home gadget to get you messaging more friends and looking at more photos. DigiTimes reports from Taiwan that Facebook is building a 15-inch touch screen smart speaker. Citing sources from the "upstream supply chain", Chinese iPhone manufacturer Pegatron is building the device for a Q1 2018 launch, with a small pilot run having already been produced. It's said to have been designed by Facebook secretive new hardware lab Building 8, using an LG in-cell touch screen with magnesium-aluminum-alloy chassis. While no further details are known about the speaker's functionality, it could potentially extend Facebook's feed of photos and videos plus its dominant messaging platform into the bedroom, living room, or kitchen.

Comments

Re:Isn't Messenger already in the BR, LR & kit

[Penguinisto]

Unless Zuckerberg can alter the HTML standard (or iOS and Android), that's still an easy enough workaround - the first thing I do with a new smartphone is jettison and/or disable all things Facebook. If I have to access it on the phone afterwards, I'll do it with the mobile browser ("Request Desktop site", continue as normal, even for messaging - which they already try to block mobile browsers from using.)

I don't want to keep battery-sucking apps pinging out annoyance every couple of minutes on my phone (the apps I use for work do that already), so what makes FB think I want a device in my house that does the same thing?

Then again, I'm probably not their target demographic...