Yesterday, Google held its annual hardware launch event, which means that it"s time for the company to kill off the products it doesn"t want to sell anymore. One item to get the axe is the Daydream View VR headset, but another device that"s been removed from the Google Store is the company"s Clips camera.
If you"re unfamiliar with Clips, it was a strange camera that Google introduced two years ago. The idea was that it uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to record short video clips for you, without you ever having to interact with it. The product would simply know when it"s the right moment to take the shot, and do it.
The idea was that you could just set it down, and it would start recording when it wanted to. There was a light that would indicate Clips was recording, and it didn"t capture audio, so it wasn"t a secret spy camera.
Google Clips was an odd product though, so at least the firm tried out something different. As is always the case with failed products though, the Mountain View firm learned a lot about using machine learning in photography, and has since been able to fold those lessons into its other products.