Sony unveils image sensor with integrated AI

Each week, we spotlight a cool innovation recommended by some of the industry's top tech writers. This week's pick is AI for cameras.

Sony unveiled the first image sensor with integrated AI to "make cameras smarter," said James Vincent at The Verge. Mobile devices already have image-sensor processors, which are how the pixels captured by a camera get compressed into a JPEG for rapid sharing. The next step is machine learning that would quickly identify objects and people in the images "like a human would."

(Courtesy image)

Other sensor chips need to transfer an image to a separate computer for that type of analysis, but Sony has built AI right into the processor itself. It's not only safer, it's faster. "Processing information as quickly as possible is paramount" in certain industrial workplace settings, for instance: A robot with an integrated AI image sensor could "detect a human where they shouldn't be" and quickly prevent an accident.

This article was first published in the latest issue of The Week magazine. If you want to read more like it, you can try six risk-free issues of the magazine here.

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