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Canon's new smart home camera is basically an overpriced Google Clips clone
Automatically taking pictures of you
It's trivial to pick up a smartphone and shoot some pictures these days, but why should the process have to be so very manual? The idea of a camera that uses facial recognition to automatically grab shots is hardly new — Google Clips debuted four years ago now, with the promise of using AI to analyze scenes, identify people, and capture the perfect moments. However, the device’s machine learning chops didn't really deliver an experience quite as impressive as Google promised. The camera wasn’t exactly wallet-friendly, either, retailing at $249. While Google ended up shutting Clips down, the general idea behind it has continued to mature, and now Canon is reimagining the automatic camera concept with the PowerShot PX.
Most of today's news has revolved around the new products added to the Google Store. However, Google has removed several older products, as well. These include the Daydream View VR headset, the Google Clips camera, and the first generation of Pixel Buds. Store listings for these devices are no longer visible without a direct link. If you attempt to access the Google Store pages for these products directly, you'll find a "no longer available" message that has replaced the purchase option.
Google's Pixel 3 and 3 XL have some of (if not the) best cameras of the year, and paired with that generally impressive performance are a handful of pretty nifty software features. One of them, called Top Shot, makes those great photos even better by helping out when you make a mistake and snap a photo just a bit too early or too late. And while we knew a little bit about how Top Shot worked, there were pretty large gaps in our knowledge. Thankfully for the inquisitive, Google has just published a more technical explanation of the tech behind it.
We're just hours away from one of the biggest shopping days in the world of online deal-finding, as Amazon gets ready to kick off its annual Prime Day savings this coming Monday, July 16. But even as so many of us get ready to snag those offers the moment they land, there's still been some decent deal action in the days leading up to Prime Day. Let's take a look at some of the better sales to arrive this past week.
Google's cute little robo-camera has received a substantial update. Clips has become better at recognizing and capturing "interesting facial expressions," and will learn which photos you keep and which you delete to better highlight content you'll want to hang on to. Perhaps most excitingly, though, Clips can now record timelapses.
Google's cute little AI camera, Clips, was made to take pictures at opportune times without human oversight. Previously, it was restricted to triggering at things like faces and poses. Now, though, Google has updated the device to recognize a few new scenarios you may want clips of, as well as pair with more than one phone to more easily share those clips with multiple people.
You've spent all week slogging away at work, earning that cheddar. Now the weekend is here, and it's time to relax, unwind, and do your own little part to contribute to the grand machinations of capitalism by putting some of that cash back into circulation. Luckily for you, we've been keeping an eye on some of the best tech deals to surface over the past few days. Here are five of our favorites, lined up and ready to make your money stretch just a little bit further.
Google's Clips is quite unlike any camera you've seen before. Announced along with the Pixel 2 in October 2017, this camera uses machine learning to detect when something interesting is happening and automatically take motion photos (think short videos without sound). Google seemed to target it to households with kids or pets where parents may want to leave the camera laying around and then check it out to see if it captured anything interesting. However, with a price tag as high as $250 and a launch date that slipped way into February/early March, Clips sort of came to market without much fanfare. Now Google is momentarily discounting it by $50 on the Google Store, perhaps to help speed up its adoption.
Google's strange clip-on camera, 'Google Clips,' officially went on sale last month. It takes photos and video automatically, using machine learning to determine what events should be saved. Now the camera has received its first major update, increasing the resolution of still images and adding pinch-to-zoom in the mobile app.
'Google Clips' was perhaps the strangest announcement from Google's October hardware event last year. It's a 130-degree clip-on camera that takes photos and videos automatically using machine learning, and sends media to your phone with the companion app. The $250 price tag is questionable at best, but if you still want to buy one, you can now do so from multiple retailers.
Google's interesting little Clips camera still hasn't arrived at anyone's doorstep since its announcement alongside the Pixel 2 back in October, but the company has just published its companion app to the Play Store. Clips went up for sale late last month, though delivery dates were slated for early March, and the Google Store sold out pretty quickly.
Three months ago Google announced the Google Clips, a tiny clip-on camera powered by some impressive machine learning technology. The idea behind it was that rather than require you to choose when to take a photo, you could trust the device to make that decision itself, so parents hoping to capture special moments with their kids don't also have to take themselves out of the moment to do it. And today you can finally order one, though delivery dates are currently set as far out as March.
Google's new Motion Photos might have flown under your radar when it was announced last week in the context of the Google Clips, but that's not surprising—there was a lot going on. Since then, we've reached out to Google for more information and, combined with our own hands-on, we've got a good understanding of what goes into a Motion Photo.
This has been an exciting week. Now that the dust has settled from Google's event on Wednesday, we've been digging into the details of each product a bit more, and there's a lot to look at.
As part of today's announcement, Google revealed the new Google Clips, a tiny camera equipped with Moment IQ machine learning meant to capture "motion photos," from "unique perspectives." It automatically chooses which moments to record. I'm at a bit of a loss to determine a use-case for it, though.