Google unfurled a surprise new gadget last week that echoes the company's earlier controversial stab at futuristic hardware.
Google announced a $249 product called Google Clips, a small, lightweight camera that pairs with its Pixel smartphones, at an event in San Francisco. It can be clipped to tables, chairs or a mantel and snaps pictures that can be stored in the Google Photos app or on the device. The company said it uses machine learning, a form of artificial intelligence, to automatically recognize and take pictures of subjects that are important to users.
It's designed to work a bit like Google Glass, the infamous head-mounted device that caused a backlash because wearers could take photos without people noticing. "It looks like a camera and has an indicator light. So everybody knows what the device does," Juston Payne, a Google product manager, said on stage.
Google is packaging some of its popular, free web services with the Clips device -- a strategy the company uses with all its new in-house hardware.
Images collected with the Clips camera are stored free on the Google Photos app, and there's no limit to how many snaps can be saved. However, the company specified that camera owners can choose to store the photos in an app, on the device or in another cloud service, a potential hedge against privacy concerns. Users can then make movies from the pictures and set them to music, Google said.