Meta Portal now lets you view Facebook Stories hands-free

The photo is from the Facebook page.

The Meta portal is getting a number of updates, including one that lets you browse through your Facebook friends stories hands-free, as detailed in a post on the About Facebook blog. You can access the feature by saying, "Hey portal, show me stories."

You can now ask the Facebook Assistant to show recent posts, responses and photos. There was no native support for Facebook, as it was only accessible through a web browser.

The Portal will let you take a photo during Messenger calls.

The Portal never had a feature that let you take pictures of your friends and family on the other side of the screen, something that Facebook said was due to privacy reasons. The Portal will let you take a photo during Messenger calls if you say, "Hey Portal, take a photo." You can use Messenger to share the photo with other people.

No matter what device you or your caller use, Meta has added support for augmented reality on both sides of a Messenger call. If your caller is using a phone or tablet instead of a Portal, they will be able to see the augmented reality effects that you turn on.

Quizbee, Sequencer, and Port-a-Pet are three new games coming to the Portal, which are accessible through the Photo Booth app. Sequencer and Port-a-Pet are similar to Quizbee in that they use verbal commands to interact with a virtual pet.

The video conferencing feature will be available on the device on December 8th, after Meta followed through on its promise to integrate Microsoft Teams with Portal. The portal, portal plus, and portal go will be available in the US later this month. Previously, it was only available on Portal TV.

Meta has slashed the price of its Portal devices, including Portal Go for $149, Portal TV for $79, and Portal Plus for $299.