It’s bringing Workplace to some Portal devices
Facebook‘s Portal video chat devices will be able to run Workplace,
the company’s collaboration software, so you’ll be able to make video
calls at work using the Portal’s video calling technology, Facebook
announced today. Until now, Facebook has positioned Portal primarily as a
way to chat with friends and family, but the new work-focused updates
suggest Facebook is targeting office workers as well.
Video calls for Workplace seem as if they will work like those made
from a Portal device at home, and will take advantage of Portal’s Smart
Camera functionality to automatically frame the people on the call, according to VentureBeat.
A marketing image from Facebook also appears to show that you can share
content with the person you’re talking to, but we haven’t tested this
ourselves.
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| © Image: Facebook |
At the very least, it seems like you can talk about a calendar.
Video calls will support up to 50 participants, Facebook told VentureBeat. You can’t do a Facebook Live broadcast yet, though. That is apparently coming soon.
However,
there seems to be a notable hardware omission in this rollout — at
launch, you apparently can’t use Workplace on the recently-introduced
Portal TV, according to VentureBeat. Portal TV plugs into a
television so you can see video chats on a bigger screen — which seems
like an ideal way to use Workplace.
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