Facebookannounced its fresh Portal computer hardware today , a limited - purpose twist that allows users to video confab on Facebook almost exclusively . And there ’s something strangely retro about the conception : This is the standalone videophone gadget that George Jetson had in the 1960s and that AT&T imagined in the 1990s — the gadget that we were supposed to skip over over .
The history of the videophone is a fascinating typesetter’s case study in how the hereafter never arrive quite as we imagined . The latter half of the 20th hundred featured all kinds of predictions for the videophone as a standalone machine . It was sound to be a product that eithersat on your deskor was large enough tostand on the earth . Some might bemounted on the wall , and phone troupe even imagined largevideo payphones , staring with instant language translation . But they all had one thing in common : They were gismo used for just one role .
In reality , the videophone snarf up on us through other devices . They appeared as just one of many functions in our computers and our smartphones . After literally decades of tell us that the videophone would be an everyday appliance like a wassailer that would exist in our homes as a consecrated video chat gimmick , we have it in a different variety with apps like Skype , Google Hangouts , and FaceTime .
The Portal comes in two different models , the Portal and the largerPortal Plus . And Facebook will recite you that this is n’t George Jetson ’s videophone . It cover you around your room and has other slick features like voice mastery with Alexa and some other minor abilities like assure the weather . But it ’s almost alone made for TV calls . No web internet browser , no Instagram , no WhatsApp , and no video transcription . You ca n’t even search at veritable Facebook on the gimmick . The Portal is in the main for telecasting calls through Facebook .
Just five days ago , I was writing about the videophone as if this new machine from Facebookwould never arrive . I write about the videophone ’s visual aspect in the 1927 film Metropolis , the room that it was hyped at both the 1939 and 1964 New York World ’s Fair , and the sleek futurism of videophones in the sixties version of The Jetsons . I was convinced that , with the advent of Skype , we would n’t see the rise of a standalone videophone product . And I was wrong . At least for now .
Facebook ’s merchandising team belike knows what it ’s doing . I ’m sure they ’ve test this thing indoors and out and have take for heap of focus mathematical group with Americans who blaspheme that the Portal would be really cool to have so that you do n’t have to throw your telephone set up awkwardly for a video call . But only time will distinguish if multitude actually need a dedicated videophone gimmick .
And all of this is to say nothing of the privateness concerns . around one in four American Facebook users have erase the appin the preceding year , according toPew Research . And that was before a late tremendous hack of Facebook uncover the personal data point of some50 million user .
Whether it ’s misusing consumer datum or literally being accused by the United Nations offueling genocide , Facebook has proven to be a net negative for humanity . But if you ’re one of the many people who does n’t give a turd about anything , the Portal might be for you . Fuck it . The man ’s blend in toburn anyway , right ?
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