The strangest announcement to come out of Google’s keynote presentation earlier this week was Clips, the company’s life-documenting (sort-of) wearable camera.
The fact that start-ups like Narrative have already tried to produce this form of wearable, with limited success, seems to have not deterred Google from creating its own version of the concept.
AI could, however, set Clips apart from similar cameras that have come before it. The device features a specialized processor made by Intel-owned chipmaker Movidus that’s able to deploy machine learning to automatically snap the best pictures.
The silicon, dubbed the Myriad 2, is described by Movidius as a ‘Visual processing unit’ or VPU and has been tailor-made to handle machine vision and object recognition tasks. This technology has previously been featured in Google’s Project Tango smartphones as well as some DJI drones.
The fact that Clips does all of its AI processing on-device rather than relying on cloud-based algorithms like the Narrative Clip 2, is also a defining feature. This could also help with battery life since the device won’t require a constant connection to the internet.
If you were wondering why I referred to Clips as “sort of” wearable, it’s because Google says that the AI-equipped shooter actually may be a little too bulky to comfortably clip to clothing. Instead, Clips is designed to be stood up via its kickstand as well as attached to other objects.
Google Canada confirmed to MobileSyrup earlier this week that Clips isn’t coming to Canada right now, though the company didn’t rule out that the device could launch at some point in the future.
Via: The Verge
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