Meet Sony's All-New AI Integrated Image Sensor
With the rise of artificial intelligence in the twenty-first century, there have been a variety of applications ranging from smart assistants in phones to autopilot features in cars. With photography and general picture-taking being a fairly common part of our daily lives due to the inception of social media apps such as Instagram and Snapchat amongst others, companies such as Sony have noticed the opportunity that AI paves in image-sensing technology.
Just recently, Sent has developed an image sensor that incorporates aspects of artificial intelligence and machine learning. The image sensor is a hybrid technology that combines AI into the hardware. This hybrid technology combines an image sensor and logic chip in order to extract data from pixels from the sensor and uses machine learning algorithms to recognise specific objects within the picture amongst many other uses.
Although the actual technology itself isn’t new or groundbreaking in any way, it effectively combines the processes carried out by logic boards and CPU’s into one logic board built into the sensor that is dedicated to precisely pin point information extracted from pixels within the sensor. This allows for faster processing times and more sophisticated image detection. The chip is capable of recognising its surroundings and instead of reporting back the entire image that contains the keyword ''cat'“ it will provide the user with specifically the cat and additional information of the background if it is needed.
Sony introduces the worlds first AI integrated image sensing chip
Although this may seem trivial to your mobile experience, the fact that this is a dedicated logic board within the image sensor itself means that overall, your phone performance and battery life will not take a toll due to the processor having to process one less task. The chip also comes with the benefit of providing better security as certain keywords can be assigned to block peoples faces, prevent unwanted images from being stored within the memory, etc.
As of now, the IVS - Intelligent Vision Sensor, is currently a prototype. However, with Sony being one of the world’s leading providers of image sensors, it seems that in the near future our next smartphones will have this type of technology integrated into them, providing us with a more fluid mobile experience, camera improvements and most importantly, safety and privacy features.