In a sign of broader ambitions, Facebook opens hardware lab

[...] deep inside its Silicon Valley headquarters, engineers have stocked a new lab with computerized lathes, industrial mills and tools for making physical goods.

Rather, it's where engineers will be working on some of the high-tech gadgetry needed for the company's long-term plans to connect people through smart devices, virtual-reality headsets and high-flying drones that deliver internet signals via laser to remote parts of the world.

[...] like Google's celebrated X lab, where the internet search giant pursues "moonshot" projects such as self-driving cars, Facebook's new research facility demonstrates that in Silicon Valley, leading tech companies are rarely content to keep doing the same thing.

The lab will be a space for engineers to design energy-efficient servers for Facebook data centers, test new laser mounts and drone propellers and perfect a prototype 360-degree video camera that Facebook unveiled at a conference in April.

The lab is dubbed Area 404, a joke playing off the "error 404" message internet users see when they try to visit a web page that can't be found.

In recent speeches, he outlined a 10-year vision for Facebook that includes services based on virtual reality, artificial intelligence and internet access for the world's most under-developed regions.

While Zuckerberg says internet access can spur economic development in poor nations, Facebook also stands to benefit if more people get online.