It is with a heavy heart that I must report that Facebook has, yet again, made a perfect hardware device that brings immense joy. I say this with sadness not because, as Facebook seems to believe, that as a member of the tech press I strive to only report bad news about Facebook. No, in fact I do nothing productive for society other than charge my phone, eat hot chip, and lie. What I’m mad about is that Portal TV is a great and wonderful device for chatting to friends and family, but no one I know will ever, ever buy one. And without someone else to use it with, it’s useless.
Released today, Portal TV is a $149 device the size of a cable remote that hooks up to your TV and allows you to videochat through your TV. The features are roughly the same as the original Portal, but the big difference from the previous models is that instead of a giant device that sits on your countertop and just does Facebook videochatting, this is a smaller, cheaper device that sits on your TV, and hey, you already have a TV.
