There was an exciting moment four years ago when it seemed like Facebook was doing something truly jaw-dropping. The company set up a new hardware division called Building 8, staffed it with scientists and engineers overseen by an executive from DARPA, and announced it was building technology to help you type with your brain and "hear" with your skin.
While it was unclear whether the bold idea would ever actually materialize, it felt innovative and different than anything the company had ever done -- a moonshot factory like Google had long been known for. But then the DARPA executive left Facebook a few months later; a year after that, Building 8 was renamed Portal, as in the Portal smart speaker Facebook made to compete with a similar product from Amazon.
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