Facebook could be working on a smartphone: reports

Facebook could be working on a smartphone, paperwork, which the tech giant filed earlier this year and which some cyber sleuths came across, suggested.

A Facebook unit that dealt with hardware filed a patent application in January for a mysterious "modular electromechanical device" that could have speakers, cameras, microphones, touchscreens, and displays.

"A user can change the functionality of the modular electromechanical device based upon the different functional modules that are connected," read the summary portion of the somewhat  paperwork filed with US patent officials.

Speculation had been rife for years over, whether the social network would try to capitalise on its popularity with its own smartphone, though it had repeatedly dismissed such talk as rumour, and declined to comment.

Facebook hardware team was led by Regina Dugan, a former director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency - DARPA - the US agency that identified and funded breakthrough technologies for national security.

Dugan had earlier headed advanced technology projects at Google, which had worked on modular phones in a project call Ara. Google gave up the project last year after testing Ara.

Facebook in April launched a mission to sync smartphone cameras' windows with augmented reality, focusing on what was available rather than waiting for high tech eyewear.

Commentators point out that Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg had called smartphone cameras, promising platform for augmented-reality features in applications tailored to synch with the social network.

"I am confident now we are going to push this augmented-reality platform forward," Zuckerberg said, AFP reported.

"We are going to make the camera the first mainstream augmented-reality platform."

According to commentators, this was not the first time that Facebook had decided to make a phone. In the past Facebook had tried to make a regular device, but in collaboration with the HTC. However, that project had failed to deliver.