Facebook swipes Regina Dugan, Google's advanced research head, to lead a new hardware division

Facebook is planning to invest hundreds of millions of dollars into building new hardware, the company said today, and it has hired a star to lead the effort: Regina Dugan, who leads the Advanced Technologies and Projects Group at Google. Dugan will lead the new group, to be called Building 8. She was previously the director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, where she focused on creating breakthrough technologies. Since 2012 she has worked at Google, developing technologies including tech-infused fabrics, modular smartphones and Project Tango.

Facebook provided few details about Building 8’s focus, other than to say it will develop “new hardware products to advance our mission of connecting the world.” Dugan will develop hardware powered by Facebook software, complementing the work of Facebook’s artificial intelligence and virtual reality divisions, the company said.

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Here are Dugan and Dennis Woodside, who headed Motorola under Google, being interviewed by Walt Mossberg at the D11 conference in 2013.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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