
In a Sign of Broader Ambitions, Facebook Opens Hardware Lab - dconrad
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2016/08/03/technology/ap-us-tec-facebooks-hardware-ambitions.html
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aresant
FB's hardware strategy is confusing.

Oculus was their first, real consumer hardware release and effort.

The rollout was amateur hour between delays, customer service, etc, but that's
forgivable and understandable at some level for a first major release.

But then Vive showed up to the party, shipped nearly on the same time frame,
and delivered a product that's in striking distance of headset quality and
WINS in interactivity.

This underscores how commoditized hardware is and will continue to be.

But then FB doubles down on protecting their "hardware play" and fucks
everybody over with their bizarre Oculus "store" experience which launched
with a ridiculous walled garden approach and an experience that's far
secondary to Steam.

Meanwhile FB and Zuck keep making noises about wanting to support VR in
general to bring about critical mass on VR as a platform so they can take the
obvious step and execute THE killer-app for VR, - a truly connected social
metaverse.

I get that having a hardware lab provides an incentive to new VR devs to come
on board, and lets them press the medium forward.

But if owning that "metaverse" is the end game why bother dickering around
with consumer hardware and pissing off / breaking trust with devs & consumers?

~~~
KaoruAoiShiho
Hardware is commoditized but brands are not. Anyone can make handbags but only
some can sell them for $5000. Oculus has potential to be as profitable as
Apple if they absolutely nail the execution and the experience. But it remains
to the be seen if the Rift is an iphone or a newton.

Being tethered to a high end gaming pc "dooms" it to be a niche product. How
soon can Oculus either ally with a console or make a console?

~~~
JustSomeNobody
> Oculus has potential to be as profitable as Apple if they absolutely nail
> the execution and the experience.

No. VR won't be that popular. I know that's hard for people on HN to hear, but
it's true. Sure it'll make money selling to geeks and nerds, but that's all.

~~~
chaostheory
Why?

~~~
JustSomeNobody
Similar reason to why 3D TV failed; nobody likes stuff on their face.

~~~
kriro
Not too long ago people assumed that nobody likes to wander around with huge
battery packs attached to their smartphones. If the perceived value is great
people are willing to put up with a lot of crazy stuff.

Also I know plenty of people who wear glasses to reap the value of better
sight. Why isn't it conceptually possible for people to wear other stuff to
reap other benefits?

~~~
JustSomeNobody
I worked my way through college in the optical industry. People hate wearing
glasses. Sure there are a few that do it for fashion, but most would rather
never have to put them on.

~~~
gedrap
I see what you mean. Just to give a different perspective, I'm wearing glasses
all the time for the majority of my lifetime (24 y/o now and since I'm 8). For
me, it's not that I hate them or something, I just can't imagine life without
them. They just became like a body part. Don't love them, don't hate them,
they simply exist.

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honkhonkpants
Less breathless reporting: Facebook builds 20000-square-foot machine shop and
bench lab, invites press to grand opening.

~~~
roymurdock
Dubs it "Area 404". Yikes.

~~~
honkhonkpants
Had been known as "Building 8" quite recently.

~~~
wookiegorilla
Building 8 != Area 404. One is a team and the other is a place.

~~~
arcticfox
Which is the team and which is the place? Those are both place names to me.

~~~
dshields1
Building 8 is the group.

> (Zuck) announced the formation of a mysterious research-and-development
> group known as "Building 8."

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wrigby
Wouldn't 'Area 201' be a more confidence inspiring name, if we're sticking to
HTTP status codes?

~~~
acangiano
Let's hope it doesn't turn out to be a 417.

~~~
personjerry
Or 418 :)

Edit: For reference, 418 is real. It is the "I am a teapot" error code, from
an April fools RFC about teapots being internet connected, which I thought was
at least marginally relevant to hardware hacking.

~~~
taneq
I love the fact that I work in an industry where "from an April fools joke"
and "is a real thing" are not mutually exclusive.

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FreedomToCreate
Well they definitely have the resources to create something amazing, but only
time will tell if those resources actually mean anything. From the basis of
what they are currently building, the lab is overkill. They must have
something secret/bigger hardware projects going on.

~~~
monk_e_boy
I guess it's a pretty cheap way to get an article in the NYTimes and most
other news sites.

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Apocryphon
Isn't Snapchat also working on a secret hardware lab?

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mandeepj
Zuck have recently said that their 1 billion VR users are going to come from
mobile phone and not PC so the real reason behind this hardware lab could be
that fb is going to develop a real phone (sw + hw) and not like earlier.

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malz
Techcrunch has some photos of the lab.

[https://techcrunch.com/gallery/facebook-hardware-
lab/](https://techcrunch.com/gallery/facebook-hardware-lab/)

~~~
caseymarquis
Good press for Haas and DMG Mori. Wonder what they're using for CAM.

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meeper16
They are nowhere near even being close to Google in terms of revenue,
technology, innovation, invention etc. After all, they started off just
copying myspace and calling their users dumb f*cks. Facebook is the next AOL.

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searine
I don't trust facebook with the data I give it now, and they want me to trust
locked hardware they made?

~~~
jacquesm
> I don't trust facebook with the data I give it now

Nice contradiction there. If you don't trust them, don't give them that data.
If you do you implicitly will have to trust them.

~~~
__jal
Not necessarily. I block FB at my router at home and via DNS on my phone,
reject mail from them at my server and use a browser blocker for their web
bugs at work. And still "my" data leaks to them via other people who
apparently upload address books, tag me in photos and whatever other
mechanisms for soliciting data on nonmembers they've ginned up.

I know this because before I started bouncing their mail I'd get an endless
stream of spam from them about how many friends desperately wished I'd sign
up.

~~~
allannienhuis
but you're not the one giving them that data - your friends/others are. Not
sure how that can be avoided in any social networking type of application.
Those applications are pretty much 'public' space in today's world. People who
really need to keep their real identities private today (ie some law
enforcement personnel) are in a tough place these days.

~~~
__jal
Correct. And one of my biggest gripes with F*%#book. Perhaps it can't be
entirely avoided in a social networking app, but there's a difference between
unwanted leakage and active encouragement. Providing incentives to people to
rat out my data is scummy.

Unfortunately, scummy is what I've come to expect from them.

~~~
jacquesm
Educate your surroundings. No pictures by default, if they do make pictures
and you're in them no facebook. Tag me on facebook and you're off my IRL
friends list and if you're family then you can strike me off the birthday
invite list.

