Last week, Meta had to cut its workforce by about 13%, which means laying off more than 11,000 employees.
While the breakdown of departments was not disclosed, Zuckerberg Blog post (Opens in a new tab) It stated in the news that the company will prioritize “high priority growth areas” including the AI discovery engine, advertising, and the metaverse.
Currently Reuters (Opens in a new tab) Uncover what this means for your Meta hardware plans. The site reported two immediate victims that were revealed at the company’s city council meeting: the portal – a smart screen device meant for video calls – and the long-rumored Meta Watch wearable.
While it’s easy to assume that canceling a product that hasn’t been released would not be so successful in the company’s bottom line, this does reduce exactly the amount of time and money Meta has actually invested. It is said that the concept of a smartwatch was far enough away to have at least two generations planned.
The first generation is set to be unique in the world of smartwatches by focusing on photography and video. Besides the usual fitness tracking capabilities, reports indicated that the device would have had a removable face – like the discontinued Fitbit Blaze – with a camera on the front and back. The former will be for wrist video calls, while the latter will allow taking better quality photos and videos for easy sharing on Facebook and Instagram.
According to a Reuters report, those working on the smartwatch will be moved to work on augmented reality glasses, as Meta looks to build on Ray-Ban Stories – another device that allows easy video sharing to Instagram and Facebook.
As for Portal, Meta has already fallen somewhat back on its original goal, and since June has only been targeting business users. But even that wasn’t enough to save him, with Andrew Bosworth, chief technology officer, stating that Portal will take a long time to become a major player in the space (previous information). (Opens in a new tab) A report links it as having only 1% of the total market).
“It was going to take a long time, it would take a lot of investment to get into the enterprise sector, and I felt it was the wrong way to invest your time and money,” he was quoted as saying. It’s unclear if this means Meta will immediately stop selling Portal and when support for the device will end.
Not mentioned in the report is the Meta Quest line of VR headsets. But, the Quest division is supposed to be secure as long as the metaverse remains a priority for the company. And for now, despite the skepticism of the general industry and the disinterested staff, that appears to be the case.
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