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Facebook is expected to release its video chat feature, Portal, later this week, reports Cheddar.
Like the Amazon Echo Show, the home speaker will include Amazon's Alexa voice assistant, and will have a screen that allows users to watch videos or have video chats with friends.
Rumors of Portal's release include the discussion of a wide-angle video camera that uses artificial intelligence to recognize people and track them in the room. The idea is to keep the communicators in the frame if they are walking around the room during the video chat, but Facebook has included a flap on the camera to mitigate privacy issues.
Portal's release potentially comes at a time when Facebook is struggling to recover from the scandals that have left user traffic and inventory at record levels. The home appliance was originally due to be announced at F8 in May, but the company delayed the launch following confidentiality issues resulting from the Cambridge Analytica bomb.
Add to that a report of unimpressive results and the action of Facebook fell by more than 20% in one day at the end of July. It has not yet fully resumed, especially after the news of August, that the site traffic has decreased by almost 50% over the last two years. But this may be due to increased mobile usage; SimilarWeb still ranks Facebook as the world's leading social media site.
In the event of publication, Portal would be Facebook's first foray into the home appliance market.
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