The tech world never learns from its mistakes. Rumors are that data-leaker Facebook is combining two bad ideas, software from Windows NT with FB hardware. The Verge reports that Facebook is developing its own operating system. Facebook’s effort is being led by Mark Lucovsky, who co-authored the Windows NT operating system.
The reports say the FB OS could be used on Facebook’s hardware products. Oculus, Portal, and forthcoming augmented reality glasses, code-named “Orion,” currently run on a modified version of Google’s Android. FB wants to reduce or remove entirely the control GOOG has over its hardware.
Ficus Kirkpatrick, who heads Facebook’s AR and VR group hedges his bets, he told The Verge “it’s possible” that future FB hardware won’t rely on Google’s software. Facebook’s head of hardware, Andrew Bosworth is more definitive, “… we’re gonna do it ourselves.”
The Verge points out that Facebook’s last attempt at producing its own OS did not go so well. The Facebook phone, or, more precisely, the Facebook phone mobile operating system, crashed and burned almost immediately. Unveiled in 2013, Mark Zuckerberg promised the $99 device would “turn your Android phone into a great social device.”
It didn’t exactly work out that way. Instead, shortly after the Facebook phone went on sale, the price dropped to 99 cents. The operating system was called out as mediocre, and early adopters complained that it was counter-intuitive and hard to — of all things — place a phone call. By 2014, the New York Times reported that Facebook had disbanded the mobile OS engineering team.
The FB mobile OS attempt resulted in a forked version of Android that ran on an HTC produced phone back in 2013. Flooding a phone with Facebook’s social feed was wildly unpopular even back before Facebook’s brand was tarnished with numerous privacy scandals. Facebook will have an uphill battle on its hands if it wants people to give its software another shot.
For those with short memories FB has leaked nearly 1 billion personal data records that we know about since 2018:
- December 2019 – 267 million
April 2019 – 540 million- December 2018 – 6.8 million
- October 2018 – 14 million
- September 2018 50 million
- June 2018 –14 million
- March 2018 – 87 million
The idea of another FB OS gets even scarier when you add the legacy of Windows NT on top of FB’s lack of respect for its user privacy. The for uninitiated, Windows NT was released in 1993. It was Microsoft’s first foray into a network operating system (NOS). WinNT had a number of issues that made the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) a household phrase.
A blue screen occurs when Windows encounters a “STOP Error.” This critical failure causes Windows to crash and stop working. The only thing Windows can do at that point is to restart the PC. This can lead to data loss, as programs don’t have a chance to save their open data. FB has put Mark Lucovsky, who co-authored the Windows NT operating system in charge of writing the FB OS. Some of the more notable problems with WinNT included,
- Allowing the default user to run at admin/root privilege without a password.
- Noted cryptographer Bruce Schneier, noted that part of Windows NT 4.0 is so broken it can’t be fixed with patches. Schneier said, “Last time they released a fix, it broke so many other parts of Windows NT.”
- WinNT did not support USB.
- NTVDM (also known as Windows on Windows, or WOW) that blocked access to the hardware so that legacy applications would run as though on a DOS computer, except without access to protected areas of memory. This resulted in a substantial number of applications simply did not work.
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People back then perhaps thought better of letting Facebook on their phones. Toward the end of the decade, it seems we’ve come full circle
The rumor mill also says Facebook is working on a brain control interface for its devices, which could allow users to control them with their thoughts. But of course, that also means that FB could have access to the user’s brain – and sell their thoughts and then your brain will throw a BSOD, and will you have to reboot your brain to recover.- I’m just saying……
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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.