Facebook’s Building 8, the secretive skunkworks division led by former DARPA director Regina Dugan, is looking into developing modular smartphones, according to a report from Business Insider.

The company filed for a patent, published today, that details a “modular electromagnetic device” that would alleviate the issue of “expensive and wasteful” conventional electronics that consumers purchase and then dispose of when they’re inevitably outdated in a couple of years. The patent describes both a phone and a smart speaker as potential product categories.

It’s unclear to what extent Facebook is working on a concrete hardware project that will see the light of day, but there are a number of signs that…

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