The Silicon Valley tech giant has moved hundreds of employees from its research-focused unit Facebook Reality Labs to a new standalone product team focused on AR, Business Insider has learned.
The employees had already been working on AR tech at the Reality Labs group prior to the move, and the shift indicates Facebook continues to be focused on developing augmented-reality hardware and that its approach is shifting from something experimental and research-driven to a focus on delivering actual commercial products.
On Wednesday, the Facebook executive Rafa Camargo also announced he was changing roles, becoming the new vice president of AR/VR hardware at Facebook under Bosworth.
Some of Building 8 was moved to Facebook Reality Labs — a rebranded version of Oculus Research, an older VR/AR-focused research lab at the company. Meanwhile, the newly created Portal organization took responsibility for the eponymous Portal smart video chat device Facebook had just launched.
It's not clear whether the AR hardware product closest to commercialization is the futuristic glasses Facebook has previously discussed or another, undisclosed product.
A digital mock-up of how the glasses might look, displayed to the crowd in an onstage presentation, resembled ordinary-looking eyeglasses with the capability to superimpose digital objects in the field of view. Facebook has said relatively little about the project since then, though Kirkpatrick confirmed to TechCrunch in October that the glasses were still being developed.
She confirmed that meant Facebook was working on multiple hardware AR products but indicated they might not all launch.