Facebook's FIRST Hardware Product?! - Portal Showcase
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2019-05-06
·
1,241 words · ~6 min read
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but really the highlight features here are of course NVIDIA phys x and 3d
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vision whoa
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who are you i'm you but from the future
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2016 is crazy the phones they got no headphone jacks what i know
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and who are you i'm you and you from the even more future in
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2018 a new hardware product will come out from facebook what what
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yeah they're making hardware now
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wait wait what's happening to us you guys are interrupting my video
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if i don't make awesome content today both of you future line i won't exist
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you got to get out of here quick take the portal facebook is
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sponsoring a showcase you gotta complete it before i
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before i
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what's this showcase
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the portal and the portal plus from facebook are not quite like any device
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that we've seen before because portal is specifically about making video calls
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feel more personal so facebook's goal here is to make your video calls feel as
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much like an in-person hangout as possible hence the name
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so how would it do that i mean obviously
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facebook doesn't have some never before seen camera under screen technology that
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would allow you to make eye contact and look at the person at the same time
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maybe that'll come in the future but they did manage to give portal at least
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three main ways to make video calls more immersive
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first portal is hands-free when you have
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a live conversation with someone you're not holding their little face out in front
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of you no your hands are free to talk all italian or you know cook or whatever
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the case may be but it's not just that portal is totally
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free standing or even that you don't have to touch it in order to place or
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answer calls hey portal call Colton
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no i don't want to talk to that guy it's that the camera will actually reframe as
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you move around your space and automatically widen the shot if more
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people enter the room it's not as fast as your eyes but it goes a long way
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towards making conversations more natural especially since you can wander
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pretty far thanks to the camera's 140 degree field of view
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the second wave portal makes you feel more present is kind of related to the
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first one it's called spotlight so if you were in a room full of people but
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only one of them was let's say opening a present for example your eyes would
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probably want to focus in on that and follow that action instead of giving
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everything in the room equal attention like most cameras do with portal you
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just double tap on the person you're interested in and the camera will keep
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them in frame just like your own eyes would if you were in the room
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finally number three is audio with two full range drivers two tweeters and a
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four inch sub as well as a four microphone array portal has a lot more
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audio hardware than your typical video calling device and it works well to keep
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your friends voices from sounding well like a speakerphone perhaps more
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importantly though portal's signal processing what they call smart sound
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does a solid job of enhancing the voice of whoever's talking and minimizing
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background noise even as you move around the room it still sounds pretty clear
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from far away now given the focus on video calling i'm sure it doesn't come
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as a surprise that facebook has built in some extras by pressing this button you
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can activate the same filters that you'd find in messenger it's got a really cute
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story time feature that adds sounds and ar effects and it allows you to listen
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to music together don't worry though you have to accept someone's request to have your portal
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just start playing music and thankfully you each have your own independent
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volume controls this is actually a feature that i'd expect to become more
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popular as people get used to the idea and as facebook expands their music
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service support because right now each person has to have either a pandora or a
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spotify premium account bringing us to the elephant in the room
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none of these cool features mean diddly if the product doesn't take privacy
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safety and security seriously so what has facebook done in that
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department well like other voice enabled devices portal only sends voice commands
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to facebook servers after you say hey portal and you can delete your voice
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history in the facebook activity log then if you want to physically
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disconnect portal from even being able to connect to the cloud you can toggle
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the camera and the microphone off with this button up here and when you do
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you'll see this red light these icons and this toast telling you that they're
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off and if that's still not enough for you facebook actually went out of their
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way to include this little camera cover inside the box but wait there's more
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facebook says that all their video calls are encrypted so they don't listen to
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view or keep the contents of your portal video calls and the ai technology used
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by the camera runs locally on portal not
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on facebook servers and even though portal smart cameras can keep you in
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frame facebook has verified with us that while it does recognize the shape of a
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human versus say a couch it does not
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have facial recognition period
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that's a definite plus as is the fact that surprisingly portal has amazon
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alexa built right in so you can check the weather control your smart lights
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set timers and all that good stuff it's also got a handful of other apps
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including food network and facebook's watch video app
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so cool but how much does it cost
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well i was actually legitimately quite surprised to learn that the smaller
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portal equipped with a 10.1 inch 1200 by 800 screen 10 watt speakers 12 megapixel
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camera is only 199 while the larger portal plus has the same internals and
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camera but with a 15.6 inch 1920x1080
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screen 20 watt speakers and an accelerometer which lets the screen go
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like this and this one is 349. not only that but
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they have a deal where you can get any two devices big small or a mix and get a
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hundred dollars off so the facebook portal is available now
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so you can get yours today from amazon best buy or directly from
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portal.facebook.com check them out at the links in the video
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description so thanks to facebook for sponsoring this video i don't think 2012 Linus
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would have seen a hardware product from facebook coming in a thousand years and
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thanks to you guys for watching if this video sucked you know what to do but if it was awesome get subscribed hit that
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like button or check out the link to where to buy the stuff we featured in the video description also down there is
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our merch tour which definitely doesn't have this shirt
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anymore and our community forum which you should totally join