Pixel 2’s Secret Chip

To say I’m a bit excited about the Pixel 2 is an understatement.  But not just cause it’s a shiny new Google Phone, but because of what it brings to the table as far as good photography.  You see, the first gen Pixel really blew me away with the capabilities of it’s HDR+ camera, so I had high expectations for the Pixel 2…and so far, the reviews state that it delivers.

What most the reviews don’t tell you is something less known…  The Pixel 2 has a brand new, in house developed, dormant 8 core image processing chip called the Pixel Visual Core that will be enabled in Android 8.1.  It can run HDR+ processing 5 times faster at less than one-tenth the energy then using ye ‘ole Snapdragon…  Not only that, but it will allow 3rd party apps to utilize it so that they can output the same good imagery that you get out of the regular camera app.  Freakin’ sweet.

This change from hardware to software imaging is really shaking up the camera game, and it wows me that smartphones are the leaders in this field vs. the bigger DLSRs and mirrorless cousins.  I mean, imagine if/when we get this type of tech in our big cameras…

Source:  https://blog.google./products/pixel/pixel-visual-core-image-processing-and-machine-learning-pixel-2/