February Update Brings Pixel Visual Core to All Apps on the Google Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL

Google has rolled out a February update to the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL smartphones which will enable the Pixel Visual Core on these devices. The Pixel 2 series of smartphones come equipped with Pixel Visual Core which is a custom image processor. The main task of this core is hardware acceleration of image processing algorithms with the main focus being on HDR+ effect. It increases the dynamic range of the image while reducing the noise. It comes with an added feature in the form of RAISR which makes use of machine learning and upscales the digitally zoomed images to make them sharper.

All these features were available in the main camera app, but third-party apps could not access them resulting in standard quality images. With the rollout of this update, third-party camera apps can now make use of the camera API and access the HDR+ image processing which was not possible earlier.

Developers can now tap into the visual core hardware and can implement the HDR+ image processing algorithms in their apps for taking great quality images. That being said, Google will be adding new AR stickers based on the winter sports theme to its camera app very soon. Stay tuned for latest updates.

In other news, Google is rolling out the February 2018 security patch update to the first generation Pixel and Nexus devices as well. Google has already pushed the factory images, but it’s yet to push the OTA update to the smartphones.