Intel Shutters Its RealSense Arm, Departs the Computer Vision Market
Intel's six-year foray into depth-sensing and object-tracking computer vision systems comes to an end this week.
Intel has confirmed that it is winding up the computer vision arm responsible for the RealSense depth-sensing object-tracking camera hardware family — to, the company claims, better concentrate on other areas of its business.
Intel unveiled its first RealSense platform back in 2015, announcing vision processors and sensors for everything from face recognition as a biometric system for laptops through to navigation and tracking for autonomous drones.
Five years ago, the company married RealSense with its embedded line-up by releasing the Joule with RealSense support — and while it dropped the Joule, Edison, and Galileo product lines in 2017, it continued to release updates for its RealSense lines.
Until now: The company has confirmed it is walking away from the computer vision market, closing its RealSense business. "We are winding down our RealSense business and transitioning our computer vision talent, technology and products to focus on advancing innovative technologies that better support our core businesses and IDM [Integrated Device Manufacturer] 2.0 strategy,” an Intel spokesperson told CRN this week.
"We will continue to meet our commitments to our current customers and are working with our employees and customers to ensure a smooth transition."
The latest entry in the RealSense portfolio, a facial authentication solution dubbed RealSense ID, was only released in January this year — and should now be considered deprecated, as Intel works to fight off competition from long-standing rival AMD in the CPU market.