Meta plans to shut down Portal, smartwatches projects

SAN FRANCISCO: Meta has planned to shut down its video calling smart display 'Portal' and its two unreleased smartwatches projects, as the company eliminated 11,000 jobs.

The Meta executives announced at an internet meeting that the company has planned to kill both Portal and the wearables, reports The Verge.

The tech giant has also dropped its plans to offer Portal video calling hardware to other businesses, as well as the other two smartwatches that were in the early and intermediate stages of development.

The most advanced smartwatch, code-named 'Milan', which was expected to ship in spring 2023 for about $349 and was likely to feature two built-in cameras for video conversations, was secretly postponed by Meta in June, the report said.

Recently, Meta had announced plans to launch another consumer-grade virtual reality headset next year.

At the company's earnings call, Meta Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that the new high-end VR headset would deliver high-resolution mixed reality to blend virtual objects into the physical environment around the users.

"Our goal for the Quest Pro line over the next several years was to enable more and more people to get their work done in virtual and mixed reality even better than they could on PCs," said Zuckerberg.