Google unveiled on Monday a flagship Pixel smart phone powered by its first mobile chip to place AI in buyers’ hands.
Pixel 6 models set for release later this year, with superfast 5G wireless capability, will debut Google’s own Tensor chip crafted along the lines of processors it made for data centres to enable computers to think more like people do.
“It’s basically a mobile system on a chip designed around AI ,” Google devices senior vice chairman Rick Osterloh said during an appointment at the company’s headquarters in Silicon Valley .
“We’re really excited about it. We’re setting the stage to actually grow the business.”
Google’s Pixel line has captured scant share during a global smart phone market dominated by Samsung, Apple and Chinese manufacturers.
Pixel phones are seen as how for Google to showcase the capabilities of its free Android mobile OS , setting a typical for other smart phone makers.
“We’ve always considered our hardware products within the context of driving computing forward,” said Google chief executive Sundar Pichai.
“Our custom Google Tensor chip, which has been four years within the making and builds off 20 years of Google’s computing experience, does exactly that.”
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The Pixel 6 hardware and software mix ramps up the smartphone’s ability to know what people say in another step toward a way forward for “ambient computing”, consistent with Osterloh.
The phrase refers to having the ability to access the web or computing power conversationally at any time as portrayed during a 2013 fantasy romance film, Her. “It’s basically this notion that you simply should be ready to naturally interact with computers all around you,” Osterloh said.
“We see the mobile being the centre of that for the foreseeable future.”
The smarter chip was also put to figure improving photo and video capabilities during a nod to hot trends in sharing images and short-form snippets online, an indication showed.
An array of sensors for photography are during a band on the rear of the smartphone, with the Pixel 6 having a 6.4 inch, edge-to-edge screen and therefore the Pro model being slightly larger.
Google’s shift to Tensor comes because the world faces a worldwide chip shortage that has hobbled production of products starting from cars to computers.
“In some ways, it’s fortunate therein we quite control our own destiny,” Osterloh said of the chip crunch.
“We think we will manage through it and see it recuperating toward the top of the year.”
