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Meta enables ADB on deprecated Portal devices [video]

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Re: Meta enables ADB on deprecated Portal devices [video]

#51

Post by ssl-3 »

numpad0 wrote: post #42

(it's series of 2018 peak pre-covid facetime deskphones, similar to Amazon Echo Show devices)

Thanks for the description. I never ran across one of those and had no idea what the context was.

I'll put this in the bucket with all the other weird human-facing hardware that didn't work out in the market, like the Spotify Car Thing[1], Amazon Dash[2], Motorola Atrix[3], and the Corel/Rebel.com Netwinder[4].

But it's pretty cool that someone is making an effort from On-High to get adb working on these Portal devices. It's not as great as it could be, but it beats a kick in the pants.

---

[1]: A cute dashtop widget that provided physical controls and a screen for Spotify and...apparently nothing else

[2]: A button! That orders one thing, only, from Amazon! Push button, receive thing! (I actually bought one of these on the first Prime Day for almost nothing. I never set it up or bothered hacking it; it got deliberately binned during the last move.)

[3]: Just plug your phone into this screen-widget, and you won't need a laptop! Pinky-swear! (And we'll have Verizon finance it for you!)

[4]: Let's sell a very low-end all-in-one tabletop ARM PC in retail stores at a direct loss, and profit from offering dial-up internet! (What could go wrong!)

Re: Meta enables ADB on deprecated Portal devices [video]

#52

Post by swiftcoder »

numpad0 wrote: post #42

(it's series of 2018 peak pre-covid facetime deskphones, similar to Amazon Echo Show devices)

We got some good mileage out of them during covid as well. My WFH setup early pandemic had the large portal as my primary visual conferencing setup - it beat the hell out of a webcam on top of a monitor.

Re: Meta enables ADB on deprecated Portal devices [video]

#53

Post by swiftcoder »

nar001 wrote: post #9

Interesting, does that mean we might get root support on the old unsupported Quest devices too? The Q1 is already discontinued and no more updates yet still locked down, and they did something similar for the Ofulus go, providing a rooted boot image for it Next would be recovery tools too, so they're not paperweights

Pretty sure Carmack had to fall on his own sword to get the Go unlocked. Not sure anyone still there is as passionate about unlocking old devices, but maybe this is a sign of changing times...

Re: Meta enables ADB on deprecated Portal devices [video]

#55

Post by KaiserPro »

petterroea wrote: post #26

It is sad that it takes a Meta developer having some fun to realize they should open up ADB. This isn't the repairability and reuseability of old devices mindset people have been begging for. This is some guy using internal privileges to having some fun, and deciding the rest of us should get a piece of the fun as well. This is a "happy story" in the same way it is a "happy story" when some kid successfully fundraise…

> It is sad that it takes a Meta developer having some fun to realize they should open up ADB.

Former facebook research lab twat here. It wasn't one dev.

We asked when they shitcanned portal (which was a great product, badly managed) to open it up. Infact one of the kernel devs made a very direct plea to allow the community to adopt the hardware so that we could avoid Ewaste.

It was denied because there are keys on the device that would leak if meta opened it up. (I'm not an android dev so I don't know the ins and outs of that)

However, portal was a casualty of the dash to VR. They scaled up the team briefly, which meant that lots of weird stuff was tried, but the roadmap was diluted. The idea was that they portal would be the "portal" to horizon worlds. this meant that they pushed back the plan for thirdparty app stores that would have meant you had something to actually do on the device.

neglect and stupidity from zuck meant that the portal was killed, even though the next gen device was actually a really great media device (wireless, removable charging stand, excellent speakers, but nothing to run on it.)

Re: Meta enables ADB on deprecated Portal devices [video]

#56

Post by KaiserPro »

siren2026 wrote: post #34
LZ_Khan wrote: post #21

totally forgot i bought one of those pieces of junk

Can I seriously ask. how does anyone go about buying a piece of Spyware from the least trusted company in the world? To me it's like buying health and fitness advices from a liquor or cigarette brand.

Because boomer mums fucking loved them.

They were easy to use and _so_ natural to talk to boomer parents.

Toddlers to phone up the grandparents really easily, and because it followed you about, it was easy and natural to use.

But, that only worked because boomer mum didn;t know about the privacy stuff.

Re: Meta enables ADB on deprecated Portal devices [video]

#57

Post by mock-possum »

ashdksnndck wrote: post #43
petterroea wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even sadder. Turns out all we needed to not have our old devices locked down was the CTO having some fun

Why is this sad? I’m having a hard time understanding the thought you are communicating. It seems cool that a CTO had fun and that motivated him to enable ADB for everyone?

It shouldn’t be left to the whim of a C-suite denizen.

Re: Meta enables ADB on deprecated Portal devices [video]

#59

Post by gnfargbl »

mock-possum wrote: post #57
ashdksnndck wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is this sad? I’m having a hard time understanding the thought you are communicating. It seems cool that a CTO had fun and that motivated him to enable ADB for everyone?

It shouldn’t be left to the whim of a C-suite denizen.

If the leadership of a company aren't the right people to make decisions about what that company does, who is?

Are you advocating for legislation? How would that work?

Re: Meta enables ADB on deprecated Portal devices [video]

#60

Post by mft_ »

KaiserPro wrote: post #55
petterroea wrote: post #26

It is sad that it takes a Meta developer having some fun to realize they should open up ADB. This isn't the repairability and reuseability of old devices mindset people have been begging for. This is some guy using internal privileges to having some fun, and deciding the rest of us should get a piece of the fun as well. This is a "happy story" in the same way it is a "happy story" when some kid successfully fundraise…

> It is sad that it takes a Meta developer having some fun to realize they should open up ADB. Former facebook research lab twat here. It wasn't one dev. We asked when they shitcanned portal (which was a great product, badly managed) to open it up. Infact one of the kernel devs made a very direct plea to allow the community to adopt the hardware so that we could avoid Ewaste. It was denied because there are keys on t…

> It was denied because there are keys on the device that would leak if meta opened it up. (I'm not an android dev so I don't know the ins and outs of that)

Any idea what changed?

> neglect and stupidity from zuck meant that the portal was killed

Is Facebook really set up such that one person's whim is the single point of failure? Is there really no way for teams to progress projects with value somewhat independently?

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