Google just released quite a bit of news about its upcoming Pixel 6 smartphone. Perhaps before the big Samsung event on Nov.
In any case, we have first look at the upcoming Android smartphone, including a pretty massive redesign of the rear camera system. The company has traded its square configuration for a large, black bar that appears to indicate an even bigger foray into upgraded hardware after several generations insisted that software / AI be the foundation of the fight.
More interesting, however, is the arrival of Tensor, a new custom SoC (system on a chip) that will debut on the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro. It’s an important step for the company to differentiate in a crowded smartphone space – which the company has admittedly struggled with in the past.
That means moving away from Qualcomm chips on these high-end systems and following Apple’s path of creating custom silicon. However, the chips will be based on the same ARM architecture Qualcomm uses to create its otherwise ubiquitous Snapdragon and Google chips will still leave me hired the San Diego company to supply components for its price-conscious A-series.
Credit: Google
The name Tensor is a clear homage to Google’s TensorFlow ML, which has driven a number of its projects. And unsurprisingly, the company is looking at AI / ML as the basis for where the chip will be in the phones to come. The Pixel team has long promoted software-based solutions such as computer photography as a differentiator.
“The team that developed our silicon wanted to make pixels even more powerful. At Tensor, for example, we thought of every piece of the chip and adapted it to run Google’s computerized photography models, ”writes Google. “For users, this means completely new functions as well as improvements to existing ones.”
In addition to the improved camera system, Tensor will play a central role in improving things like speech recognition and language learning. The details are understandably still thin (the full reveal is coming this fall, mind you), but today’s announcement seems geared towards portraying the future of an overhauled Pixel team – and certainly that kind of focus plays exactly what Google are doing should do in the smartphone area: concentrate on his smarts in AI and software.
Last May, key members of the Pixel team left Google, pointing out a transition for the team. Hardware boss Rick Osterloh is said to have spoken harsh words at the time.
“AI is the future of our innovation work, but the problem is that we have reached computational limits that have prevented us from fully pursuing our mission,” wrote Osterloh in today’s post. “So we set out to build a technology platform for mobile devices that would enable us to bring our most innovative AI and machine learning (ML) to our Pixel users.”