Google Clips brings AI into cameras

"How do you let yourself capture these fleeting moments, while being part of the moment?" Google asks this of us as it unveils a new camera unlike anything we’ve seen so far. Called Google Clips, it’s a self-contained camera that can take photos and videos without you prompting it to do so (but a sole button on it will let you manually record what you want). It runs pre-trained machine learning algorithms and generates clips and photos it thinks are the best ones. It then lets you export these as either photos, videos, or GIFs. Google is focusing on a specific set of users at the moment: parents and pet parents, to be specific. With the artificial intelligence component, they need to teach specific things to the machine learning model so it can start recording things like your child crawling around the living room for the first time. Google with the help of Intel’s Movidius Myriad 2 vision processing unit brings on-board AI processing to Clips.

At first glance, Clips raises some privacy concerns. But Google is quick to address this. Firstly, the clips it records are soundless. The media is all contained in the tiny teal and white cube and can only be exported to the connected smartphone. Clips comes with a 12-megapixel sensor with a 130-degree field-of-view lens capable of taking photos at 15fps. It has a 16GB internal memory and works with a handful of devices at the moment, including Pixel, Samsung Galaxy S7 and S8, and iPhone 6 and up. It’s not a cheap device, though, as it retails for US$249 (approx. CA$310).

Source: TechCrunch + The Verge

Canadian Google Pixel owners have until January 2021 to take advantage of ‘original quality’ Google Photos uploads

All good and free things must come to an end. And that also goes for the ability of Pixel users to upload “original quality” photos and videos to their Google Photos app. For the US users, the access will end by 2020. Meanwhile, we get an extra two weeks or so as the free option will be taken off the table on January 15, 2021. It hasn’t been explicitly said if all uploads done before the end date will remain available to users but at this point we assume that it will. To continue to upload new images and videos in their original state past the deadline, it seems you’ll have to start paying as you would for extra storage on, let’s say, Google Drive. If you switch back to the “high quality” setting though, you’ll continue to have free storage for your Pixel.

Source: Android Authority

Google's Pixelbook redefines the Chromebook segment

Chromebooks have traditionally been affordable, no frills devices. Much like entry-level notebooks, they are made of plastic, offfer few ports and have moderate specs. Google's newly released Pixelbook, however, truly defies convention. 

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See the Stranger Things AR stickers on the Pixel 2 in action

One of the more engaging demos of the new Google Pixel 2 devices were the AR (Augmented Reality) Stickers that they can project onto a scene. Here we see Eleven and the Demogorgon from Netflix' Stranger Things show populating a set piece. Not only are the stickers animated, they are interacting with the real and virtual objects and people around them. This is a simple yet truly engaging implementation of AR. Google is working on more partnerships for this exclusive Pixel initiative.