Can't see any pics on Firefox Focus browser on mobile. Are they using some weird Desktop only CSS?
Works fine on my own Focus browser (Android). Weird.
Focus on Android currently uses WebView (aka chromium/chrome)
Pixel Visual Core: Google’s first custom-designed co-processor
21–30 of 102 posts
Re: Pixel Visual Core: Google’s first custom-designed co-processor
#22It looks like they are releasing these bits and pieces before the Finale. Custom ARM core, SOC in entirety.
I'm not so sure about that. I don't doubt they have the skill to do it, but I doubt they can make the numbers work. Apple can make custom CPU cores because they sell a shitload of phones. Google does not.
Re: Pixel Visual Core: Google’s first custom-designed co-processor
#23It looks like they are releasing these bits and pieces before the Finale. Custom ARM core, SOC in entirety.
I'm not so sure about that. I don't doubt they have the skill to do it, but I doubt they can make the numbers work. Apple can make custom CPU cores because they sell a shitload of phones. Google does not.
Maybe they would license it to manufacturers - use our core design AND our operating system gratis, as long as you send users to our services?
Googles ad revenue is so important that they should do absolutely anything and everything to protect it, spending billions on R&D to keep android at the forefront is essential, and at the moment they are only really competitive on the software side (A11 smokes latest snapdragon chips, as does the A10....), offering a custom chip would give android the vertical integration that Apple leverage to be so dominant.
Re: Pixel Visual Core: Google’s first custom-designed co-processor
#24Cool, but am I the only one who thinks the photos on the right (toward the bottom) are a little overexposed / bland / washed-out?
Yeah, agreed. I screen captured the unprocessed image from the webpage (which has been jpeg'd and therefore lost lots of the shadow detail). I loaded it into a paint package and did a simple (and computationally cheap) histogram adjustment. IMO, the results were at least as good as theirs. And these are the results they cherry picked. Not impressive. I guess most people won't load the image into a paint package to fi…
I don't think the Pixel Visual Core is supposed to do anything new or revolutionary -- the primary purpose is to do these old things FASTER for the user.
Re: Pixel Visual Core: Google’s first custom-designed co-processor
#25The left/right comparison for HDR are pointless : they should show the same image with same contrast/exposure with the two techniques at 100% pixel. The difference between without HDR and with HDR should be less noise (otherwise if it's just about having more exposure in the darkest parts of the image, then a little bit of image processing can do the trick)
Hopefully the idea is that it looks at the scene, decides which exposures are needed to capture the DR (for example 1/100s ISO800 for the foreground and 1/200s at ISO100 for the background) and then quickly captures exactly those two exposures in rapid succession. Then the software would try to compensate movement between the frames and stack these exposures into one.
So long as it involves multiple pictures and the inputs (exposure params)are computed are taken done when the photo is captured, then it does things you can't do with image processing in any single image.
Re: Pixel Visual Core: Google’s first custom-designed co-processor
#26Cool, but am I the only one who thinks the photos on the right (toward the bottom) are a little overexposed / bland / washed-out?
Their results are quite bad compared to a passably competent Photoshop user willing to spend 2 minutes per picture.
But if you need the computer to do all the color adjustment for you, so you can post your snapshot on facebook or print it at the local drug store with no manual intervention, this might be a good enough result.
Re: Pixel Visual Core: Google’s first custom-designed co-processor
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, agreed. I screen captured the unprocessed image from the webpage (which has been jpeg'd and therefore lost lots of the shadow detail). I loaded it into a paint package and did a simple (and computationally cheap) histogram adjustment. IMO, the results were at least as good as theirs. And these are the results they cherry picked. Not impressive. I guess most people won't load the image into a paint package to fi…
I don't think the Pixel Visual Core is supposed to do anything new or revolutionary -- the primary purpose is to do these old things FASTER for the user.
But a simple histogram stretch can be done with very little processing power by modern standards. 50 ms on one core of the application processor would be enough.
I think they just chose bad examples. The results from this Google Research blog post are much much more impressive:
https://research.googleblog.com/2017/04/experimental-nightti...
I wish my smartphone could do _that_ automatically.
Re: Pixel Visual Core: Google’s first custom-designed co-processor
#28The left/right comparison for HDR are pointless : they should show the same image with same contrast/exposure with the two techniques at 100% pixel. The difference between without HDR and with HDR should be less noise (otherwise if it's just about having more exposure in the darkest parts of the image, then a little bit of image processing can do the trick)
Hopefully the idea is that it looks at the scene, decides which exposures are needed to capture the DR (for example 1/100s ISO800 for the foreground and 1/200s at ISO100 for the background) and then quickly captures exactly those two exposures in rapid succession. Then the software would try to compensate movement between the frames and stack these exposures into one. So long as it involves multiple pictures and the…
Yes you can, there are multiple inputs BUT the effect is about extending dynamic range only (not create an artistic effect between the inputs).
You can always extend numerically the DR of any set of values but you will stumble upon some noise eventually.. This HDR+ module is supposed to have less noise in the shadows OR have better sun effects / beautiful highlights (candles for example) / good looking clouds. A good test would be shooting in strong direct sunlight and look at the shadows.
Re: Pixel Visual Core: Google’s first custom-designed co-processor
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think the Pixel Visual Core is supposed to do anything new or revolutionary -- the primary purpose is to do these old things FASTER for the user.
But a simple histogram stretch can be done with very little processing power by modern standards. 50 ms on one core of the application processor would be enough. I think they just chose bad examples. The results from this Google Research blog post are much much more impressive: https://research.googleblog.com/2017/04/experimental-nightti... I wish my smartphone could do _that_ automatically.
Thanks for that. That was amazing.
Re: Pixel Visual Core: Google’s first custom-designed co-processor
#30Cool, but am I the only one who thinks the photos on the right (toward the bottom) are a little overexposed / bland / washed-out?
Yeah, agreed. I screen captured the unprocessed image from the webpage (which has been jpeg'd and therefore lost lots of the shadow detail). I loaded it into a paint package and did a simple (and computationally cheap) histogram adjustment. IMO, the results were at least as good as theirs. And these are the results they cherry picked. Not impressive. I guess most people won't load the image into a paint package to fi…
BUT it is HDR aka they take multiple of photos and use the under exposed for the sky and the more exposed for the faces. So they are doing MUCH more then a histogram.