Meta pulls the plug on Portal and unreleased smartwatches: Report

After Twitter laid off half its workforce, Fb’s guardian firm Meta determined to put off 11,000 workers final Tuesday. Whereas the corporate needs to chop prices and survive by one of the difficult instances, the layoffs will affect Meta’s future product ambitions. 

Meta kills its video conferencing platform and unreleased smartwatches

The corporate is pulling the plug on two unreleased smartwatches and its widespread video-calling show platform, Portal. As per a report revealed by Reuters on November 12, 2022, Meta execs confirmed at a city corridor assembly that the corporate is killing each initiatives. 

In line with one other report by The Verge, the corporate stopped making Portal video-calling units for customers in June 2022. Moreover, it has additionally shelved the smartwatches in improvement, one in every of which was codenamed “Milan” and was purported to retail for round $349. Final 12 months, the publication additionally reported that the smartwatch would function two built-in cameras. 

Citing a number of stories, Meta, known as Fb again then, was engaged on a smartwatch with two built-in cameras. Whereas one of many cameras was purported to be on the entrance panel for video calling, the opposite auto-focus digicam was on its again for capturing movies when indifferent from the body. 

Fb was additionally speaking to different corporations to make equipment for the smartwatch that would match its removable show on issues like backpacks. Again then, the corporate had plans to develop into extra shopper units, however these will not come to life now. 

Firm to concentrate on Metaverse-related merchandise

About 46% of the corporate’s current layoffs have been associated to tech, as reported by Reuters. Though we have no idea what proportion of workers have been within the {hardware} improvement departments, the corporate continues to be pursuing a few of its product initiatives within the type of the most recent Quest Professional headset and others associated to augmented and digital actuality. 

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