> Facebook doesn’t listen to, view or keep the contents of your Portal video calls. Your conversations stay between you and the people you’re calling.
It's not entirely clear from their wording if the calls are E2E encrypted or not - "doesn't" isn't quite the same as "can't". I wish they would be more clear about this.
Alexa is barely home automation... it's a voice controlled switch in 99% of use. Home automation is events responding to triggers, as if by magic, not "Alexa, kitchen lights on", nor too any real extent voice controlled scenes.
If I were a betting man I'd take a wager that by the end of Q1 2019 there'll be basic automation support built into Alexa, in the form of "when this motion sensor goes off turn on the lights", and a fairly robust set of functionality by the end of 2019.
It's annoying that it doesn't clearly specify a feature comparison with a device like the Amazon Echo Show. I don't want yet another screen in a room that can't be multi-functional. Recipes, TV, third party music, browsing etc. etc.
Does this actually solve a problem people have? The biggest problem with video calling right now is that the networks are garbage, not that I can’t have a video call while doing something else.
Just another gimmick Facebook is trying to make themselves more than just an app.
> The biggest problem with video calling right now is that the networks are garbage
As in your internet is slow? That's not a problem for everyone I guess. For me it's pretty fast.. Facebook has tried projects to speed up last mile internet (beam it down with drones, etc), but that appears to be a hard problem to solve.
> Facebook doesn’t listen to, view or keep the contents of your Portal video calls. Your Portal conversations stay between you and the people you’re calling.
But, we do store your call history. We use this call history to "serve you great ads". We also sell meta-information from this call history to advertisement providers to help them know more about you. This could help them make decisions in your life like insurance policies, flight/train tickets amongst other things. Apart from that, Portal is completely "Private by Design".
Are you just assuming the second part? The privacy policy doesn’t mention anything about this, except that third-party integrations may have ads, but they’re not served via FB, etc.
> Portal does not have Facebook ads at this time. Some third-party services on Portal (e.g., music partners) may embed ads in their content in the same way they do when providing their services on other devices.
That would make for a pretty terrible device. It would mean no web browser. No software that wasn't carefully vetted. Probably no app ecosystem at all. I mean, go for it, but you're serving a very small market at that point.
Sure, Mr. Zuckerberg, whatever. We totally trust you not to clandestinely change that in the future, because you're such a trustworthy guy running a totally trustworthy company.[1]
You would never, say, make information marked as private suddenly public without the user even knowing, right?
You would, of course, never screw around with privacy defaults without letting the user even know, correct?
On a less sarcastic note. If you put a spy device manufactured by facebook into your place of living and trust them to keep their "promises" you really deserve what you get.
It's crazy how much people expect of Facebook compared to Google and Amazon, despite both of the latter companies either incorporating ads or gathering targeting information from Hangouts, Google Home, Alexa etc, or planning on doing so (Amazon planning on turning Alexa into an ads platform)[0].
So you’re saying you’d rather have paywalls and subscriptions across the internet? Turn the internet into a classiest institution that grants and denies service based on wealth? That sounds horrible.
I can't find anything on the portal site mentioning encryption. They claim:
>Private by design
>Portal was created with privacy, safety and security in mind. And it has clear and simple settings, so you stay in control.
and in the FAQ:
>Secure calls
>Facebook doesn’t listen to, view or keep the contents of your Portal video calls. Your conversations stay between you and the people you’re calling.
And they have lock icons all over the place bragging about the security. But not once does it mention any sort of encryption. Presumably it's encrypted in transit to and from Facebook's servers, but if it were end-to-end encrypted such that Facebook couldn't monitor it, you'd think they would mention that.
Is "We don't listen to your calls, but we could" what passes for security and privacy at Facebook? Or is there e2e encryption and they've for some reason chosen not to mention it?
Do people actually buy these video devices? Is it something people actually want, or is television marketing so effective you can convince a large enough section of the population to make this product viable?
I feel like we're in a decade-long fad of techno gadgets. I'm eager for it to end.
I can't speak for consumer demand, but I've worked at a place that spent a fortune on Cisco VTC devices, which are basically larger, less user-friendly versions of this.
I wonder the same thing. I mean, Kinect did a great job of providing video calling via Skype, but it never gained market acceptance. Why would this be any different?
I'm not sure what you mean about the fad of techno gadgets, though. It seems to be that we've had a lot of new gadgets for the past 40 years. Some have been phenomenally successful and stayed around and others haven't (or have come back years later in different forms). I don't expect this to end.
I specifically mean "smart devices" like refrigerators, watches, these weird voice controlled home automation devices, tablets. I just saw a commercial for headphones that are voice controlled.
I don't want or need any of this extra gadgetry, cell phone and laptop are quite sufficient for all of the tasks I care about. I suspect most 'normal' people are like myself and just don't care about all this electronic nonsense.
I get your point, though I actually like the intent of a lot of these devices. I mean, if the smart refrigerator weren't so overpriced, I can see the value in a calendar and shopping list on the refrigerator. Its exactly why people hang paper ones there, but with the added benefit of being synced.
But yeah, there are definitely a lot of overboard cases. I can't imagine using the Alexa microwave or voice controlled headphones. Some of these definitely have a 2008 app store vibe to them.
> I get your point, though I actually like the intent of a lot of these devices. I mean, if the smart refrigerator weren't so overpriced, I can see the value in a calendar and shopping list on the refrigerator. Its exactly why people hang paper ones there, but with the added benefit of being synced.
Unfortunately, I don't trust the vendors of these devices to make them not easily exploitable, I wouldn't trust them with my wifi connection or any of my data.
There are a few use cases where the screen is helpful. Multi-day weather forecasts, recipes, video calling, viewing security cameras or doorbell type cameras.
I have an Echo Show in the living room, and I make more frequent use of video calling than I'd expected to - the big use case for me is quickly dropping in to say hello to my son before bed when I'm away for work. That's something that can be done with mobile devices, but that then requires him to be near one, which he's too young for at the momment.
My family did purchase a dedicated Skype video device for my grandmother when she started suffering from cognitive decline and moved into an assisted living facility. But beyond niche use cases like that it's hard to see the point of such devices, especially when they're locked into just a single software platform.
I work in IT in a large institution. Recently we started requiring 2-factor auth to get into payroll. The number of people who tell us “I don’t use apps on my phone” and require a hardware token is shockingly high.
For every tech savvy hacker news minimalist there are 5+ people who find technology easiest to work with when a device does one thing and one thing only.
I also would prefer to have a hardware token vs app on phone, probably for a different reason (I don't want lots of bloated apps on my phone).
And probably those 5+ people that want devices to have one function probably don't want many of these gadgets in the first place. They are in the league of ugly Christmas sweaters: Given, but not used.
Any compelling reason to use this vs FaceTime or what ever android users use for video chat?
Does anyone want anything built by Facebook in there homes?
Anything Facebook has released outside of thei core product seems to be a hot mess. Remember that garbage android skin? I see literally no one buying this.
Well, maybe the network effect: if you buy this gadget and log in using your FB account, you already have your contact list (all your FB contacts) ready to call.
Interestingly the other party doesn't even need to have this gadget, if they have FB Messenger app (which has the video functionality) you'll be able to talk to each other.
And what do Android users use? In Europe it would be most likely WhatsApp, and guess who publishes WhatsApp.
Why would you use this over the smartphone in your pocket?
Look at the positions where this garbage is placed in the rooms in the video, literally no one would place these things in the middle of tables, in the middle of countertops. I can't believe Facebook have wasted there time with this. Spend money improving user privacy and security and your share price will go up more than competing on hardware products.
That was the main use case they built it for though. In another article it talks about their inspiration being the What but Why post about having spent 93% of the time you’ll ever spend with your parents by the time you’ve graduated high school.
My real question is who need that? We all have smartphone or computers or tablets with video calling apps built in. What is market who need a device for video call only?
There might be a niche for an 'always on' (more or less) video service. It feels very awkward to 'be quiet together' on most current voice and video call services and that causes people to end the conversation faster than they would if they were there physically (it's one of the reasons why I like gaming with my long-distance friends, because you can chat, then focus on the game for a bit, then go back to chatting - it feel more like hanging out, and less like a focused exchange of information). As another example, Snapchat is strictly worse than normal messaging from a purely technical perspective (there's no history!), but in reality it causes people to communicate in a different way, and share things that might be too small or inconsequential to add to your permanent message record - it makes it feel like you're sharing your day and the small things in it with someone even if they're not there physically. So in a similar vein, Portal might feel like a different medium just from being on more often, and nudging people toward just leaving it on while cooking dinner. It might also not - I certainly don't want more Facebook in my life, but the point is, details in implementation and framing can make the same technology feel like a different medium that enables different kinds of communication.
>We collect the content, communications and other information you provide when you use our Products, including when you sign up for an account, create or share content, and message or communicate with others. This can include information in or about the content you provide (like metadata), such as the location of a photo or the date a file was created. It can also include what you see through features we provide, such as our camera, so we can do things like suggest masks and filters that you might like, or give you tips on using camera formats. Our systems automatically process content and communications you and others provide to analyze context and what's in them for the purposes described below.
"From the background, we notice that you're at the Grand Canyon. We suggest using our landscape filter to make the canyon really POP! Oh and here's an ad from the Bright Angel Lodge."
That's from Facebook's generalized privacy policy. According to the product page:
> Facebook doesn’t listen to, view or keep the contents of your Portal video calls.
> For added security, Smart Camera uses AI technology that runs locally on Portal, not on Facebook servers. Portal’s camera does not use facial recognition and does not identify who you are.
So, that reads more private to me. However, the general policy definitely applies to the voice commands:
> Like other voice-enabled devices, Portal only sends voice commands to Facebook servers after you say, “Hey Portal.”
Obviously, that can always change at any time, but the starting point seems to be pretty much par for the course compared to other smart display products.
I am surprised how the portal+ with a 15.6" screen doesn't look like it has that big of a screen. Even with the 1 picture that shows it in a livingroom it doesn't seem like it is that big.
If you are selling a "plus" version that's main feature is a bigger screen, you would show the screen is large?
edit: I see there are 2 more pictures, which do a little better job.
Seems like a good product from the wrong two companies. I don't want Alexa nor Facebook in my house listening to everything, regardless of how "private" they say my conversations are.
Ironically the way they insist it's "privacy friendly" and has a physical camera cover included might get people thinking "hold up, should I trust this for privacy" while they wouldn't think about it otherwise.
While I'm not inclined to use this anyways, we've become a Google Home household and use Duo to speak with international relatives, I'm frankly disappointed that the $200 version is only 720p and not 1080p.
Definitely a bit underwhelming considering that besides the Alexa functionality it's essentially a single purpose device.
So Facebook's vision (according to what they communicate with their landing page) is that people basically want to be connected, by sound and video, all the time? "If you can’t be there, feel there".
I mean... seems like a perfect example if loosing sight of your mission and what users really want. A typical "ok we want people to be more connected, what could we come up with?" and the less bad idea was "a video camera! For the home! So people can always video chat! Hands free!".
I really don't see myself video call my significant other while we are both cooking in a different home and enjoying this.
Anyone? Does anyone gets excited about this?
FaceTime doesn’t work cross platform (they have android) and Skype just doesn’t work. Also this means they don’t have to hold up a phone which can get tiring.
I think the question was equivalent to "why use this over facebook videos on the phone or laptop" which you do already. How is it so much better than it requires the spend for this extra equipement. I'm also interesting to hear your take.
Well to be honest I normally wouldn’t get a device like this before the first user reviews were in. But in this case my friend was a lead on the project and has said it’s a huge upgrade from those other options. That’s it more like just being there. So I’m mostly getting on faith.
Alexa + big screen for video calls and spotify? Pre-ordered 2, sending one to my parents who live across the country. I also love the aesthetic, very clean looking. I also like that it isn't connecting to Facebook servers.
> Like other voice-enabled devices, Portal only sends voice commands to Facebook servers after you say, “Hey Portal.” You can delete Portal's voice history in your Facebook Activity Log.
It's me, the company that hoards your personal data and just got hacked in a huge way, please put a camera in your house that I control which I _swear_ won't be used to spy on you.
Sort of hilariously tone deaf that they launch this right after they just got hacked.
75 comments
[ 58.2 ms ] story [ 1846 ms ] threadIt looks great -- if only this wasn't facebook! You know there's probably going to be some double-speak going on above.
Edit: grammar cleanup
It's not entirely clear from their wording if the calls are E2E encrypted or not - "doesn't" isn't quite the same as "can't". I wish they would be more clear about this.
Or that Alexa has won the home automation already ?
https://venturebeat.com/2018/08/28/alexa-can-now-play-your-f...
Disclaimer - work on Alexa, but not this.
Or, voice assistant is not the market FB want to compete on.
Just another gimmick Facebook is trying to make themselves more than just an app.
As in your internet is slow? That's not a problem for everyone I guess. For me it's pretty fast.. Facebook has tried projects to speed up last mile internet (beam it down with drones, etc), but that appears to be a hard problem to solve.
But, we do store your call history. We use this call history to "serve you great ads". We also sell meta-information from this call history to advertisement providers to help them know more about you. This could help them make decisions in your life like insurance policies, flight/train tickets amongst other things. Apart from that, Portal is completely "Private by Design".
So when do they add them?
> Portal does not have Facebook ads at this time. Some third-party services on Portal (e.g., music partners) may embed ads in their content in the same way they do when providing their services on other devices.
How about no ads, ever?
Sure, Mr. Zuckerberg, whatever. We totally trust you not to clandestinely change that in the future, because you're such a trustworthy guy running a totally trustworthy company.[1]
You would never, say, make information marked as private suddenly public without the user even knowing, right?
You would, of course, never screw around with privacy defaults without letting the user even know, correct?
On a less sarcastic note. If you put a spy device manufactured by facebook into your place of living and trust them to keep their "promises" you really deserve what you get.
[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/embarrassing-and-damaging-zu...
[0](https://www.adweek.com/digital/why-brands-should-be-ready-fo...)
If there is a valid criticism of Facebook, and another of Google, the appropriate response is, “Yes, and Google too.”
Let’s keep the focus on the bad actors, not on policing dissent.
>Private by design
>Portal was created with privacy, safety and security in mind. And it has clear and simple settings, so you stay in control.
and in the FAQ:
>Secure calls
>Facebook doesn’t listen to, view or keep the contents of your Portal video calls. Your conversations stay between you and the people you’re calling.
And they have lock icons all over the place bragging about the security. But not once does it mention any sort of encryption. Presumably it's encrypted in transit to and from Facebook's servers, but if it were end-to-end encrypted such that Facebook couldn't monitor it, you'd think they would mention that.
Is "We don't listen to your calls, but we could" what passes for security and privacy at Facebook? Or is there e2e encryption and they've for some reason chosen not to mention it?
I'll stick with Facetime and iMessage, thanks.
I feel like we're in a decade-long fad of techno gadgets. I'm eager for it to end.
I'm not sure what you mean about the fad of techno gadgets, though. It seems to be that we've had a lot of new gadgets for the past 40 years. Some have been phenomenally successful and stayed around and others haven't (or have come back years later in different forms). I don't expect this to end.
I don't want or need any of this extra gadgetry, cell phone and laptop are quite sufficient for all of the tasks I care about. I suspect most 'normal' people are like myself and just don't care about all this electronic nonsense.
But yeah, there are definitely a lot of overboard cases. I can't imagine using the Alexa microwave or voice controlled headphones. Some of these definitely have a 2008 app store vibe to them.
Unfortunately, I don't trust the vendors of these devices to make them not easily exploitable, I wouldn't trust them with my wifi connection or any of my data.
For every tech savvy hacker news minimalist there are 5+ people who find technology easiest to work with when a device does one thing and one thing only.
And probably those 5+ people that want devices to have one function probably don't want many of these gadgets in the first place. They are in the league of ugly Christmas sweaters: Given, but not used.
When I do phone call, when someone pick up, I introduce myself and start talking. When I do hangout meeting, everybody first asks "Can you hear me"?
Does anyone want anything built by Facebook in there homes?
Anything Facebook has released outside of thei core product seems to be a hot mess. Remember that garbage android skin? I see literally no one buying this.
Interestingly the other party doesn't even need to have this gadget, if they have FB Messenger app (which has the video functionality) you'll be able to talk to each other.
And what do Android users use? In Europe it would be most likely WhatsApp, and guess who publishes WhatsApp.
If they manage to add WhatsApp integration...
Look at the positions where this garbage is placed in the rooms in the video, literally no one would place these things in the middle of tables, in the middle of countertops. I can't believe Facebook have wasted there time with this. Spend money improving user privacy and security and your share price will go up more than competing on hardware products.
The things that can go wrong, apart from the regular expected FB BS.
Yeah, that’s gonna be a no from me dawg.
> Facebook doesn’t listen to, view or keep the contents of your Portal video calls.
> For added security, Smart Camera uses AI technology that runs locally on Portal, not on Facebook servers. Portal’s camera does not use facial recognition and does not identify who you are.
So, that reads more private to me. However, the general policy definitely applies to the voice commands:
> Like other voice-enabled devices, Portal only sends voice commands to Facebook servers after you say, “Hey Portal.”
Obviously, that can always change at any time, but the starting point seems to be pretty much par for the course compared to other smart display products.
If you are selling a "plus" version that's main feature is a bigger screen, you would show the screen is large?
edit: I see there are 2 more pictures, which do a little better job.
Definitely a bit underwhelming considering that besides the Alexa functionality it's essentially a single purpose device.
I mean... seems like a perfect example if loosing sight of your mission and what users really want. A typical "ok we want people to be more connected, what could we come up with?" and the less bad idea was "a video camera! For the home! So people can always video chat! Hands free!".
I really don't see myself video call my significant other while we are both cooking in a different home and enjoying this. Anyone? Does anyone gets excited about this?
We already use Facebook messenger for this since it’s the easiest for my parents to use. This would be an improved messenger experience in my eyes.
Plenty of people do just that though. Many people in long distance relationships pretty much have a constant Skype call if they’re both at home.
I don’t think the concept is a bad one at all, it’s just awkward coming from Facebook.
https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/8/17944022/new-amazon-echo-...
Second gen, bigger screen, does video calls, obviously has Alexa and no Facebook involvement.
It’s very much connected to their servers.
Lol
It's me, the company that hoards your personal data and just got hacked in a huge way, please put a camera in your house that I control which I _swear_ won't be used to spy on you.
Sort of hilariously tone deaf that they launch this right after they just got hacked.