
Intel acquires Itseez, leading developer of OpenCV - cpcat
https://newsroom.intel.com/editorials/intel-acquires-computer-vision-for-iot-automotive/
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gambler
_> Intel is transforming from a PC company to a company that powers the cloud
and billions of smart, connected computing devices._

Sounds like they want to go the same route as HP and IBM. I.e. transform
themselves from a company that does cutting-edge research and makes
universally useful products into a corporate blob with no specific purpose and
niche products of dubious quality.

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flyinglizard
I don't think so. I think they genuinely want to be a computer vision leader,
and provide a vertical computation/vision/connectivity stack like no other for
developers to pick up.

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gambler
Thing is, I don't see how the stuff from the article ties into their existing
business. When I hear "IoT" or "self-driving car" or "Computer Vision" I think
about ARM, Google, NVidia and a bunch other brands, but not Intel.

It seems like they're trying to catch up to the leaders of several newly
fashionable IT fields while simultaneously pivoting away from their core
business. That's why it strongly reminds me of IBM and HP.

Also, for the heck of it, compare the types of news you see on NVidia and
Intel websites:

[http://nvidianews.nvidia.com/](http://nvidianews.nvidia.com/)

[https://newsroom.intel.com/](https://newsroom.intel.com/)

Side note: I'm surprised Intel isn't focusing all their effort on the
emergence of VR. Proper VR requires a powerful PC, which is one of the areas
of computing Intel still dominates (along with NVidia). If they bought
Oculus...

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jonas21
To be fair, Intel does have a history in computer vision. They were the
original developer of OpenCV, back in the 90s.

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rawnlq
I think it's a smart move. Every major tech company is investing heavily into
VR/AR to hedge their bets. Examples:

    
    
      Facebook with Oculus(acquired for $2B)
      Google with Glasses, Cardboard, MagicLeap($542 million in series B)
      Apple with Metaio(acquired for ??)
      Microsoft with Hololens
      Sony with PSVR
      HTC/Valve with Vive
      Amazon with Flow app
      Snapchat with their filters
      Uber with self driving cars
    

Basically every major company out there is doing something with AR or VR and
they will all use OpenCV.

Also despite the fact that a lot of computer vision algorithms are GPU
accelerated, the vast majority of them (at least in opencv) runs on CPU only.
Intel can definitely do a lot of great stuff there.

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mcintyre1994
Google have a much bigger play now, they've built VR into Android N along with
reference headset/controller design and apps like YouTube specifically
optimised.

~~~
rawnlq
I didn't follow that piece of news closely but I thought it was just native
support to make products like Oculus's GearVR more usable but you will still
need something like gear vr to make it work?

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mcintyre1994
You'll still need a headset and they haven't put any details out yet, but I
think they're standardising the remote. The main thing though is they're
building a full VR experience in Android itself and that seems like a much
bigger play than Cardboard ever could have been.

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ibrahima
Funny to see Intel re-take control of OpenCV after handing it off(?) to Willow
Garage and then Itseez. Guess it turned out to be more important than they
initially thought?

(?) Don't know the details of the transitions and why they occurred

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bobbyi_settv
When Gary Bradski worked at Intel, he was the leader of OpenCV. He was the
only one there who was passionate about it and Intel officially supported the
project basically as a favor to him. So when he left to found Willow Garage,
they saw no problem with letting him continue to be the leader of the project.

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lettergram
Pretty sure they are just trying to bring as much knowledge as they can inside
Intel. Plus it's good for publicity amongst the computer vision crowd.

I expect little to change.

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daraosn
Ok, any guesses on so how would this affect their open source projects? i.e.
OpenCV's license is 3-clause BSD, and of course as Intel started the project
is a copyright holder, so things as usual?

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meursault334
I wonder what impact this will have on their Accelerated CV library.

[http://itseez.com/products/accelerated-
cv/](http://itseez.com/products/accelerated-cv/)

It would be nice if this and whatever iOS equivalent they presumably have in
development became free or cheaply available. It seems like this might not be
in intels best interest though.

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hodwik
They also own a big stake in Tobii, leader in pupil tracking.

Interesting to see them positioning themselves for the future here.

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fiatmoney
The strategic case for it is that it lets them optimize the software for their
hardware and vice versa - same reason they have C and Fortran compilers with a
reputation for generally good number-crunching performance.

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yaur
I wonder to what degree the rise of CUDA played into this. A lot of CV tasks
are better performed on the gpu and today nvidia is the goto platform for
that.

~~~
fiatmoney
Yeah, they have a parallel strategy (for now) with their Xeon Phi hardware,
but there's still a performance penalty vs Nvidia. A big problem is that all
the software is written for CUDA and optimized for particular Nvidia cards -
hence, software / hardware synergy.

Wouldn't be surprised to see them acquire more deep learning algo startups as
well.

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gonzo41
They missed the ball by letting the mobile market get picket up by ARM. the
internet of things is coming and its going to be the internet that sees
things!

