Project Tango is a five-inch phone, but what sets it apart is its unique visual processing chipset. Developed by the startup Movidius, the Myriad 1 is the first implementation of the company's homegrown visual processing technology. The hardware is entirely proprietary, from the silicon layout, to the instruction set, to the software platform built on top. Basically, the Myriad 1 is capable of much more complex processing than your ordinary smartphone chip. In the words of CEO Remi El-Ouazzane, the goal is to "extract intelligence out of a scene."
In other words, the goal is to create a processor that sees not just depth and space but also objects and context. As El-Ouazzane points out, this higher-level visual processing has been accomplished computationally before, so what makes Movidius' chipset interesting is its 8mm x 8mm size.
Of course, all that power need more than the standard gyroscope, compass, and accelerometers. According to Google, Project Tango will also have a Kinect-like depth camera, a motion sensing camera, and two vision processors. We know that at least one of those is Movidius. What's the other?
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