According to a report by The Information, Facebook is working on a streaming device that should allow users to make video calls through their televisions. The report states that the social media giant has approached various streaming services like Disney, Hulu and even Netflix to integrate their services into this device.
Code-named Catalina, this new device from Facebook will be a more mature version of the Portal, Facebook’s counter-top camera-equipped smart speaker. The Portal also comes with a small display built into it so that users can follow video updates or recipes as they go along. The new device is expected to be built along the same concept but will interface with the user’s TV to enable video-calling. According to Andrew Bosworth, Vice President of Facebook's Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR), “The new device, code-named Catalina, will also come with physical remote and streaming video services similar to other television boxes like Apple TV,” confirming that the device of this kind exists.
Facebook has been trying hard to get into the hardware game after establishing its dominance in the social media space. It launched Portal in 2018, a little after the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke. This was followed by a larger Portal Plus, which came with a 15.6-inch display but kept almost all other hardware features the same. The device used “Hey Portal” as its wake word, but also offered integration with Amazon’s Alexa.
Catalina is currently a work in progress and there’s no confirmation on when it will be launched or at what price. There is also no official confirmation on whether any of the streaming services have agreed to integrate their services into Facebook’s device.
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