Intel's RealSense technology is a combination of three cameras that can act as one to measure depth and motion. The chipmaker was also hoping to use it to track emotion.
But Apple seems to have squashed those aspirations when it purchased Emotient, a startup that created an artificially intelligent computer capable of reading human emotions.
Combined, Intel's RealSense technology and Emotient's AI could have allowed hardware and software to work together to detect whether people are happy, sad, surprised and more, simply by analyzing the movement in a person's lips, eyes and cheeks.
Beyond tracking emotion, Intel has already used its RealSense hardware in other applications such as on drones outfitted with the cameras to navigate their way through a forest.
RealSense has also been incorporated in many other devices such as smartphones, tablets, PCs and robots to capture 3D video, make out different objects, and measure distances.
Moreover, some reports have suggested that Intel could use the technology to enter the augmented reality race against other offerings from the likes of Google and its investment in Magic Leap, or Microsoft with its HoloLens headset.
In fact, a RealSense-powered helmet (yes, a whole helmet and not just a headset) made by a company called Daqri was shown-off during this year's Consumer Electronics Show. The company's demo showed how the helmet could assist industry workers in the field, specifically in an AR setting where a thermal imaging AR overlay was used to pinpoint heat-venting pipes.
The addition of Emotient's technology could have allowed Intel's RealSense a feature to help differentiate it from their competitor's offerings. In the third release of the software development kit for RealSense last year, Intel shared that with the Emotion Detection, its hardware could not only pick up on certain emotions, but it could tell the difference between them, too.
"Anger, contempt, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, surprise AND positive, negative, and neutral sentiments" were some emotions that RealSense could process.
Unfortunately, however, in the latest release of the RealSense SDK, Intel has apparently left out support for Emotient's plug-in. The SDK still provides support for face tracking and facial recognition, but it's not clear how robust the technology will be without the supporting Emotient.
Nonetheless, since Apple did indeed buy out Emotient, it would have probably been only a matter of time until Intel and Emotient cut ties from each other.
