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movidius-machine-intelligence

Rumors are swirling that Google is developing a truly-standalone VR headset — 1 that doesn't require either a smartphone like Paper-thin and Gear VR, or a tethered PC, like Oculus and Vive. If it succeeds, the device will bemore akin to Microsoft's upcoming HoloLens AR headset in providing an integrated, untethered solution for enthusiasts willing to spend the coin on a carve up, consummate device.

Google certainly has as much or more experience as any of its competitors with all the pieces needed to make this happen. The troubled Google Glass project provided valuable experience in what works and what doesn't in head-mounted wearables, likewise as in how to minimize power, weight, and size of a mobile calculator. Google Cardboard'southward v meg units shipped dwarfs the sum total of every other VR device ever — giving Google a natural advantage in getting content developers on board, and a user base that may be interested in trading up. Google's Tango project demonstrates existent-fourth dimension SLAM (simultaneous location and mapping) in a mobile form factor, and it is working with Lenovo and Qualcomm to bring that to market in a consumer phone.

Breaking through the power clogging

One of the biggest remaining problems for Google or anyone else looking to build a mobile solution for AR, VR, or vision-intensive applications is power consumption. GPUs are much better than CPUs at chewing through the computations required, merely usually at the expense of consuming groovy amounts of power. So, for now, custom silicon looks to be part of the solution. Google has already announced that it volition be partnering with startup Movidius to contain its custom vision processing and machine learning fries in futurity phones. Then it would make perfect sense that Google would also use those fries in a VR headset — although so far both companies aren't willing to commentpublicly on the speculation. Microsoft is addressing this upshot on its own then far, with what it calls a custom Holographic Processing Unit of measurement in its HoloLens.

Better Android integration than Gear VR or HTC Vive

1 advantage that Google has over Samsung and HTC is its control of the Android operating system. Equally a Gear VR user, one weakness of current devices is impuissant integration with the native device OS. A Google-branded, standalone device could benefit from a more-seamless integration with Android. I'd wait it to run existing Cardboard applications, simply it might add a complete VR interface to Google Play — so that content and apps could exist managed directly from the device, unless the user is expected to manage the headset's applications from their smartphone.

Separately, information technology is likely that Google will follow-up the mass-market success of Cardboard with a slightly higher-terminate version, mayhap to be announced (or even given away) at its I/O conference this May. I'd wait that product to await more like a Gear VR — with lenses, sensors, and perhaps even audio — just be dependent on your smartphone for most of its processing and its display. Of grade, it would also support a wider variety of smartphone models than the few the Gear VR does.