Intel is the dominant maker of the chips used in laptop and desktop computes, but the PC market has plateaued (or declined) in recent years, so Intel has been looking to move into emerging technologies.
The company’s efforts in the smartphone space haven’t gone very well. But Intel has big plans for virtual reality, drones, automotive technology, and other Internet-of-Things product categories.
As part of that vision, Intel has announced plans to buy Movidius, a leader in the computer vision space.
Computer vision technology helps process information from cameras to help computing devices make sense of their environments. This helps drones fly and robots roll without crashing into things, enables mapping software to collect data, and enables virtual reality and augmented reality applications.
Movidius makes tiny, low-power system-on-a-chip products that are used by companies including Google, DJI, and Lenovo and Intel says technology from Movidius will be used in next-gen versions of Intel’s RealSense products (which are designed to do basically the same thing).