Intel plans to buy Movidius, a startup building vision chips for drones and virtual reality

Intel is buying Movidius, a startup that builds vision processors that are used in drones and virtual reality products.

Needless to say, this acquisition will further boost I ntel’s RealSense vision and strategy. As part of RealSense, Intel has built and acquired critical technologies in computer vision and perceptual computing. According to Intel, computer vision enables machines to visually process and understand their surroundings. Cameras serve as the eyes and the central processing unit is the brain, and a vision processor is the visual cortex. The computer vision allows navigation and mapping, collision avoidance, tracking, object recognition, inspection analytics and more. With Movidius, Intel gains low-power, high-performance SoC platforms for accelerating computer vision applications. It also brings algorithms required for deep learning, depth processing, navigation and mapping, and natural interactions, and also broad expertise in embedded computer vision and machine intelligence. “Movidius’ technology optimises, enhances and brings RealSense capabilities to fruition,” says Intel. In a blogpost, Josh Walden, senior vice president and general manager of Intel’s New Technology Group writes, “We see massive potential for Movidius to accelerate our initiatives in new and emerging technologies. The ability to track, navigate, map and recognize both scenes and objects using Movidius’ low-power and high-performance SoCs opens opportunities in areas where heat, battery life and form factors are key. Specifically, we will look to deploy the technology across our efforts in augmented, virtual and merged reality (AR/VR/MR), drones, robotics, digital security cameras and beyond. Movidius’ market-leading family of computer vision SoCs complements Intel’s RealSense offerings in addition to our broader IP and product roadmap.” Movidius is an eight-year old company with about 180 employees, and has also managed to bag some deals with Google, Lenovo and DJI. According to Re/code, the Myriad 2 is its latest chip that is capable of making sense of multiple video streams on a chip that is of the size of a fingernail.