
Facebook failed to break into hardware: The untold story of Building 8 - pinewurst
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/02/facebooks-flop-in-hardware-the-untold-story-of-building-8.html
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mc_blue
Really fascinating article, and once again a reminder that hardware and
software are two different animals with different timelines and processes.

2 humorous tidbits and 1 scary: >>The eight in Building 8 represented the
number of letters in Facebook. Its physical location was inside Building 59 on
Facebook’s main campus in Menlo Park, California.

So the Building 8 team is not actually at a building called Building 8, but
Building 59?

>>The exclusive invitations had arrived in the form of stainless steel slabs.
To get into the event, attendees handed their invitation to a staffer, who put
the slabs onto a machine programmed to cut the metal into a bottle opener. The
staffer then handed back the bottle opener, along with a beer.

Just... peak Silicon Valley.

>>In early 2018, the remaining research projects were moved to Oculus
Research, which has since been rebranded as Facebook Reality Labs, based in
Redmond, Washington. That’s where the company is working on a brain-reading
interface — a noninvasive wearable device that will allow people to type using
their thoughts.

The implications of this type of technology (especially used by FB) make me
really uncomfortable. The ability to access, store, and analyze user thoughts
is something that has the potential to be used in very wrong ways. Just
another way to get even more specific and targeted user information,
potentially information that I never intended on sharing with Facebook. What
do other people think about this technology? Am I crazy?

