9 ms·

In a Sign of Broader Ambitions, Facebook Opens Hardware Lab

134 points by dconrad 10y ago

aresant 10y ago
FB's hardware strategy is confusing. Oculus was their first, real consumer hardware release and effort. The rollout was amateur hour between delays, customer service, etc, but that's forgivable and understandable at some level for a first major release. But then Vive showed up to the party, shipped nearly on the same time frame, and delivered a product that's in striking distance of headset quality and WINS in interactivity. This underscores how commoditized hardware is and will continue to be. But then FB doubles down on protecting their "hardware play" and fucks everybody over with their bizarre Oculus "store" experience which launched with a ridiculous walled garden approach and an experience that's far secondary to Steam. Meanwhile FB and Zuck keep making noises about wanting to support VR in general to bring about critical mass on VR as a platform so they can take the obvious step and execute THE killer-app for VR, - a truly connected social metaverse. I get that having a hardware lab provides an incentive to new VR devs to come on board, and lets them press the medium forward. But if owning that "metaverse" is the end game why bother dickering around with consumer hardware and pissing off / breaking trust with devs & consumers?
- ProAm 10y ago
  > Oculus was their first, real consumer hardware release and effort. Wouldn't their server initiative be their first?
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - BillinghamJ 10y ago
    > consumer
    - ProAm 10y ago
      Yeah, they did open source their server design though for the betterment of mankind
- KaoruAoiShiho 10y ago
  Hardware is commoditized but brands are not. Anyone can make handbags but only some can sell them for $5000. Oculus has potential to be as profitable as Apple if they absolutely nail the execution and the experience. But it remains to the be seen if the Rift is an iphone or a newton. Being tethered to a high end gaming pc "dooms" it to be a niche product. How soon can Oculus either ally with a console or make a console?
  - nightski 10y ago
    They haven't nailed execution and/or experience. Simple as that. Do they have time to fix it? Maybe. But it's going to be a battle and it doesn't seem like they are in fighting mode.
    - vvanders 10y ago
      Yup, even moreso when HTC is pinning their future(I assume) on the Vive they're going to throw everything the can behind it.
  - randiantech 10y ago
    I think you nailed it. Oculus is order to not become a niche product needs to be sold as part of a console bundle. That would make premium VR to a one pressed button distance. Maybe Project Scorpio + Oculus? Scorpio specs seems to be enough for a good VR experencie.
    - justinlardinois 10y ago
      > Scorpio specs seems to be enough for a good VR experencie. That's one of the project's main goals. But my understanding is that Microsoft is developing its own Xbox VR headset.
    - onewaystreet 10y ago
      > Oculus is order to not become a niche product needs to be sold as part of a console bundle Facebook wants VR to be more than video games. Bundling the Gear with Samsung phones has been a success so far.
- yolesaber 10y ago
  >Oculus was their first, real consumer hardware release and effort. Remember the Facebook phone? Oh wait, right, no one does...
  - lhl 10y ago
    Ironically made by... HTC. (The Rift is probably the first FB consumer device where they were completely responsible for the hardware.)
    - ProAm 10y ago
      > the first FB consumer device where they were completely responsible for the hardware To be fair they bought Oculus after the hardware had been created and funded by crowd sourcing.
      - dawnerd 10y ago
        Guess everyone forgets that...
        hkmurakami 10y ago
        Considering the widespread outrage and very public fallout with Mojang, I don't think everyone has quite forgotten just yet.
        dawnerd 10y ago
        It's a real shame oculus has gone down this path. Previously I thought VR was a dumb gimmick that wouldn't go anywhere. After getting a vive though my mind has completely changed. I hope the other companies getting into the space don't try to ruin it.
      - kirrent 10y ago
        The first and second development kits, sure, but the consumer version was developed after the acquisition.
honkhonkpants 10y ago
Less breathless reporting: Facebook builds 20000-square-foot machine shop and bench lab, invites press to grand opening.
- roymurdock 10y ago
  Dubs it "Area 404". Yikes.
  - honkhonkpants 10y ago
    Had been known as "Building 8" quite recently.
    - wookiegorilla 10y ago
      Building 8 != Area 404. One is a team and the other is a place.
      - arcticfox 10y ago
        Which is the team and which is the place? Those are both place names to me.
        dshields1 10y ago
        Building 8 is the group. > (Zuck) announced the formation of a mysterious research-and-development group known as "Building 8."
        kriro 10y ago
        My thoughts as well. I'd guess Building 8 since that is probably based on Hateful 8? So basically the 8 that build stuff (building used as a verb). Pure speculation though.
searine 10y ago
I don't trust facebook with the data I give it now, and they want me to trust locked hardware they made?
- WizKid 10y ago
  As the article say: "The lab will be a space for engineers to design energy-efficient servers for Facebook data centers ...". Those servers are open compute servers that are totally open source. You can get the blue prints online
- knorby 10y ago
  Facebook's hardware also includes the open compute project, which is quite the opposite of locked hardware
- jacquesm 10y ago
  > I don't trust facebook with the data I give it now Nice contradiction there. If you don't trust them, don't give them that data. If you do you implicitly will have to trust them.
  - __jal 10y ago
    Not necessarily. I block FB at my router at home and via DNS on my phone, reject mail from them at my server and use a browser blocker for their web bugs at work. And still "my" data leaks to them via other people who apparently upload address books, tag me in photos and whatever other mechanisms for soliciting data on nonmembers they've ginned up. I know this because before I started bouncing their mail I'd get an endless stream of spam from them about how many friends desperately wished I'd sign up.
    - allannienhuis 10y ago
      but you're not the one giving them that data - your friends/others are. Not sure how that can be avoided in any social networking type of application. Those applications are pretty much 'public' space in today's world. People who really need to keep their real identities private today (ie some law enforcement personnel) are in a tough place these days.
FreedomToCreate 10y ago
Well they definitely have the resources to create something amazing, but only time will tell if those resources actually mean anything. From the basis of what they are currently building, the lab is overkill. They must have something secret/bigger hardware projects going on.
- monk_e_boy 10y ago
  I guess it's a pretty cheap way to get an article in the NYTimes and most other news sites.
meeper16 10y ago
They are nowhere near even being close to Google in terms of revenue, technology, innovation, invention etc. After all, they started off just copying myspace and calling their users dumb f*cks. Facebook is the next AOL.
nanoojaboo 10y ago
This sentence was so interesting the author included it twice: "Facebook says it spent $4.8 billion on research and development in 2015, nearly doubling its budget from the previous year."
williesleg 10y ago
Nice! Now we can have hardware tracking me and filtering what I see.
Apocryphon 10y ago
Isn't Snapchat also working on a secret hardware lab?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
wrigby 10y ago
Wouldn't 'Area 201' be a more confidence inspiring name, if we're sticking to HTTP status codes?
- acangiano 10y ago
  Let's hope it doesn't turn out to be a 417.
  - personjerry 10y ago
    Or 418 :) Edit: For reference, 418 is real. It is the "I am a teapot" error code, from an April fools RFC about teapots being internet connected, which I thought was at least marginally relevant to hardware hacking.
    - __jal 10y ago
      It it were 419 and I started hearing from previously unknown dead relatives' barristers in VR-land, I'd know who to blame.
    - taneq 10y ago
      I love the fact that I work in an industry where "from an April fools joke" and "is a real thing" are not mutually exclusive.
- kevin_thibedeau 10y ago
  Area 303: Just go ahead and buy HTC instead.
malz 10y ago
Techcrunch has some photos of the lab. https://techcrunch.com/gallery/facebook-hardware-lab/ https://techcrunch.com/gallery/facebook-hardware-lab/
- TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
  Damn. All I've got at work is a 4kW laser cutter and a 5 tonne overhead crane, oh and a 220 tonne press and a 4m guillotine. About 30 mig welders. There's a machine shop next door too.
- caseymarquis 10y ago
  Good press for Haas and DMG Mori. Wonder what they're using for CAM.
rezashirazian 10y ago
Why is there such emphasis on black and hispanics in a company's diversity formula whereas Indians and other Asian ethnicity are usually ignored. If a company is inherently biased and discriminates against non-white individuals, then wouldn't they do it against all minorities not just blacks and hispanics?
- taneq 10y ago
  I think the unspoken assumption is that Indians and East Asians have no trouble getting hired based just on their academic and technical merits, despite not being caucasian. If you think about this for a while you'll realise that the "diversity" being championed is not diversity of race or gender. No company is so racist that it will refuse to hire someone who's going to make them a profit.
- sotojuan 10y ago
  Same as to why white people are ignored: There's plenty of them and they have no trouble getting jobs at Facebook. https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2015/06/driving-diversity-at-facebook/ https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2015/06/driving-diversity-at-fa...
- kevin_thibedeau 10y ago
  Gotta fight off the Sharpton shakedown.
- noname123 10y ago
  Because diversity in America is an emotionally-based internal and external marketing, not a statistically rigorous initiative to truly measure and hold companies and Universities accountable. Better similar questions are, what is the ratio of East Asian and South Asian middle-management and senior management in Silicon Valley over their individual contributor head count (vs. the same ratio for Caucasian counterpart)? What is the ratio of black students and employee's in a company, when broken down specifically by class (e.g., middle and upper-middle class black people living in suburbs of DC vs. first generation black college students from inner city Baltimore) and by immigration (e.g., Nigerian's who have the same immigrant/culture work-ethic's as East Asian's are just as over-represented in elite American schools)?
mandeepj 10y ago
Zuck have recently said that their 1 billion VR users are going to come from mobile phone and not PC so the real reason behind this hardware lab could be that fb is going to develop a real phone (sw + hw) and not like earlier.

134 points by dconrad 10y ago

FB's hardware strategy is confusing. Oculus was their first, real consumer hardware release and effort. The rollout was amateur hour between delays, customer service, etc, but that's forgivable and understandable at some level for a first major release. But then Vive showed up to the party, shipped nearly on the same time frame, and delivered a product that's in striking distance of headset quality and WINS in interactivity. This underscores how commoditized hardware is and will continue to be. But then FB doubles down on protecting their "hardware play" and fucks everybody over with their bizarre Oculus "store" experience which launched with a ridiculous walled garden approach and an experience that's far secondary to Steam. Meanwhile FB and Zuck keep making noises about wanting to support VR in general to bring about critical mass on VR as a platform so they can take the obvious step and execute THE killer-app for VR, - a truly connected social metaverse. I get that having a hardware lab provides an incentive to new VR devs to come on board, and lets them press the medium forward. But if owning that "metaverse" is the end game why bother dickering around with consumer hardware and pissing off / breaking trust with devs & consumers?

ProAm 10y ago
> Oculus was their first, real consumer hardware release and effort. Wouldn't their server initiative be their first?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- BillinghamJ 10y ago
  > consumer
  - ProAm 10y ago
    Yeah, they did open source their server design though for the betterment of mankind
KaoruAoiShiho 10y ago
Hardware is commoditized but brands are not. Anyone can make handbags but only some can sell them for $5000. Oculus has potential to be as profitable as Apple if they absolutely nail the execution and the experience. But it remains to the be seen if the Rift is an iphone or a newton. Being tethered to a high end gaming pc "dooms" it to be a niche product. How soon can Oculus either ally with a console or make a console?
- nightski 10y ago
  They haven't nailed execution and/or experience. Simple as that. Do they have time to fix it? Maybe. But it's going to be a battle and it doesn't seem like they are in fighting mode.
  - vvanders 10y ago
    Yup, even moreso when HTC is pinning their future(I assume) on the Vive they're going to throw everything the can behind it.
- randiantech 10y ago
  I think you nailed it. Oculus is order to not become a niche product needs to be sold as part of a console bundle. That would make premium VR to a one pressed button distance. Maybe Project Scorpio + Oculus? Scorpio specs seems to be enough for a good VR experencie.
  - justinlardinois 10y ago
    > Scorpio specs seems to be enough for a good VR experencie. That's one of the project's main goals. But my understanding is that Microsoft is developing its own Xbox VR headset.
  - onewaystreet 10y ago
    > Oculus is order to not become a niche product needs to be sold as part of a console bundle Facebook wants VR to be more than video games. Bundling the Gear with Samsung phones has been a success so far.
yolesaber 10y ago
>Oculus was their first, real consumer hardware release and effort. Remember the Facebook phone? Oh wait, right, no one does...
- lhl 10y ago
  Ironically made by... HTC. (The Rift is probably the first FB consumer device where they were completely responsible for the hardware.)
  - ProAm 10y ago
    > the first FB consumer device where they were completely responsible for the hardware To be fair they bought Oculus after the hardware had been created and funded by crowd sourcing.
    - dawnerd 10y ago
      Guess everyone forgets that...
      - hkmurakami 10y ago
        Considering the widespread outrage and very public fallout with Mojang, I don't think everyone has quite forgotten just yet.
        dawnerd 10y ago
        It's a real shame oculus has gone down this path. Previously I thought VR was a dumb gimmick that wouldn't go anywhere. After getting a vive though my mind has completely changed. I hope the other companies getting into the space don't try to ruin it.
    - kirrent 10y ago
      The first and second development kits, sure, but the consumer version was developed after the acquisition.

honkhonkpants 10y ago

Less breathless reporting: Facebook builds 20000-square-foot machine shop and bench lab, invites press to grand opening.

roymurdock 10y ago
Dubs it "Area 404". Yikes.
- honkhonkpants 10y ago
  Had been known as "Building 8" quite recently.
  - wookiegorilla 10y ago
    Building 8 != Area 404. One is a team and the other is a place.
    - arcticfox 10y ago
      Which is the team and which is the place? Those are both place names to me.
      - dshields1 10y ago
        Building 8 is the group. > (Zuck) announced the formation of a mysterious research-and-development group known as "Building 8."
      - kriro 10y ago
        My thoughts as well. I'd guess Building 8 since that is probably based on Hateful 8? So basically the 8 that build stuff (building used as a verb). Pure speculation though.

searine 10y ago

I don't trust facebook with the data I give it now, and they want me to trust locked hardware they made?

WizKid 10y ago
As the article say: "The lab will be a space for engineers to design energy-efficient servers for Facebook data centers ...". Those servers are open compute servers that are totally open source. You can get the blue prints online
knorby 10y ago
Facebook's hardware also includes the open compute project, which is quite the opposite of locked hardware
jacquesm 10y ago
> I don't trust facebook with the data I give it now Nice contradiction there. If you don't trust them, don't give them that data. If you do you implicitly will have to trust them.
- __jal 10y ago
  Not necessarily. I block FB at my router at home and via DNS on my phone, reject mail from them at my server and use a browser blocker for their web bugs at work. And still "my" data leaks to them via other people who apparently upload address books, tag me in photos and whatever other mechanisms for soliciting data on nonmembers they've ginned up. I know this because before I started bouncing their mail I'd get an endless stream of spam from them about how many friends desperately wished I'd sign up.
  - allannienhuis 10y ago
    but you're not the one giving them that data - your friends/others are. Not sure how that can be avoided in any social networking type of application. Those applications are pretty much 'public' space in today's world. People who really need to keep their real identities private today (ie some law enforcement personnel) are in a tough place these days.

FreedomToCreate 10y ago

Well they definitely have the resources to create something amazing, but only time will tell if those resources actually mean anything. From the basis of what they are currently building, the lab is overkill. They must have something secret/bigger hardware projects going on.

monk_e_boy 10y ago
I guess it's a pretty cheap way to get an article in the NYTimes and most other news sites.

meeper16 10y ago

They are nowhere near even being close to Google in terms of revenue, technology, innovation, invention etc. After all, they started off just copying myspace and calling their users dumb f*cks. Facebook is the next AOL.

nanoojaboo 10y ago

This sentence was so interesting the author included it twice: "Facebook says it spent $4.8 billion on research and development in 2015, nearly doubling its budget from the previous year."

williesleg 10y ago

Nice! Now we can have hardware tracking me and filtering what I see.

Apocryphon 10y ago

Isn't Snapchat also working on a secret hardware lab?

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

wrigby 10y ago

Wouldn't 'Area 201' be a more confidence inspiring name, if we're sticking to HTTP status codes?

acangiano 10y ago
Let's hope it doesn't turn out to be a 417.
- personjerry 10y ago
  Or 418 :) Edit: For reference, 418 is real. It is the "I am a teapot" error code, from an April fools RFC about teapots being internet connected, which I thought was at least marginally relevant to hardware hacking.
  - __jal 10y ago
    It it were 419 and I started hearing from previously unknown dead relatives' barristers in VR-land, I'd know who to blame.
  - taneq 10y ago
    I love the fact that I work in an industry where "from an April fools joke" and "is a real thing" are not mutually exclusive.
kevin_thibedeau 10y ago
Area 303: Just go ahead and buy HTC instead.

malz 10y ago

Techcrunch has some photos of the lab. https://techcrunch.com/gallery/facebook-hardware-lab/ https://techcrunch.com/gallery/facebook-hardware-lab/

TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
Damn. All I've got at work is a 4kW laser cutter and a 5 tonne overhead crane, oh and a 220 tonne press and a 4m guillotine. About 30 mig welders. There's a machine shop next door too.
caseymarquis 10y ago
Good press for Haas and DMG Mori. Wonder what they're using for CAM.

rezashirazian 10y ago

Why is there such emphasis on black and hispanics in a company's diversity formula whereas Indians and other Asian ethnicity are usually ignored. If a company is inherently biased and discriminates against non-white individuals, then wouldn't they do it against all minorities not just blacks and hispanics?

taneq 10y ago
I think the unspoken assumption is that Indians and East Asians have no trouble getting hired based just on their academic and technical merits, despite not being caucasian. If you think about this for a while you'll realise that the "diversity" being championed is not diversity of race or gender. No company is so racist that it will refuse to hire someone who's going to make them a profit.
sotojuan 10y ago
Same as to why white people are ignored: There's plenty of them and they have no trouble getting jobs at Facebook. https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2015/06/driving-diversity-at-facebook/ https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2015/06/driving-diversity-at-fa...
kevin_thibedeau 10y ago
Gotta fight off the Sharpton shakedown.
noname123 10y ago
Because diversity in America is an emotionally-based internal and external marketing, not a statistically rigorous initiative to truly measure and hold companies and Universities accountable. Better similar questions are, what is the ratio of East Asian and South Asian middle-management and senior management in Silicon Valley over their individual contributor head count (vs. the same ratio for Caucasian counterpart)? What is the ratio of black students and employee's in a company, when broken down specifically by class (e.g., middle and upper-middle class black people living in suburbs of DC vs. first generation black college students from inner city Baltimore) and by immigration (e.g., Nigerian's who have the same immigrant/culture work-ethic's as East Asian's are just as over-represented in elite American schools)?

mandeepj 10y ago

Zuck have recently said that their 1 billion VR users are going to come from mobile phone and not PC so the real reason behind this hardware lab could be that fb is going to develop a real phone (sw + hw) and not like earlier.