Facebook was expected to introduce the smart Home-Speaker at the F8 event in May but now it looks like the company has delayed its plans amid data-privacy practices and the outrage surrounding it, according to industry sources.
The company’s new hardware products, connected speakers with digital-assistant and video-chat capabilities are currently under review to ensure that they make the right trade-offs with the user data. The new hardware products are a part of the Facebook’s plan to become more involved with users’ everyday social lives taking advantage of the artificial intelligence much like how Amazon is doing with its Echo devices.
With user-data privacy violations, FTC investigation and outrage among common users now is the wrong time for Facebook to make an announcement of the same. As expected, Facebook declined to comment on the reports. However, Facebook is still planning to launch the products later this year when the crisis gets over. It is expected that the company would reveal new, more restrictive rules about what kind of information Facebook can collect on their users.