LG has confirmed plans to launch a new version of its V30 handset at this year's Mobile World Congress. And when it does, the handset will come with a variety of artificial intelligence features powering its camera.
In a statement on Tuesday (Feb. 13), LG said that the V30 will ship with a camera outfitted with its Vision AI technology. According to the company, the artificial intelligence will identify what kind of picture you're trying to take and after analyzing your surroundings, will recommend the best shooting mode from eight options: portrait, food, pet, landscape, city, flower, sunrise, and sunset.
"The angle of view, color, reflections, backlighting, and saturation levels are all taken into consideration as the phone analyzes images in its database to determine what the camera is focusing on in order to recommend the best setting," LG said in a statement. "For example, pointing the camera at a plate of pasta will result in food mode being invoked, resulting in warmer colors and heightened sharpening for the most appetizing shot possible."
This feature sounds a lot like the object recognition built into the camera of Huawei's Mate 10 Pro.
LG is expected to have a somewhat difficult Mobile World Congress after the company was forced to delay its upcoming flagship the LG G7. According to reports, LG brass decided that the G7 wasn't ready to compete against market leaders, like the upcoming Galaxy S9 and Apple's iPhone X, ultimately wants the handset refreshed. It's unknown when it might launch.
At Mobile World Congress later this month, then, LG is left with the V30—a handset that it released last year and will offer only minor upgrades on it in 2018. And artificial intelligence appears to be its chief selling point.
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According to LG, its new Vision AI relies upon an analysis of more than 100 million images that have been thrown into an algorithm to deliver the best recommendations. The company said that it created more than 1,000 unique image categories to create "more accurate image analysis."
Aside from the camera, LG's V30 Vision AI will work to help you get "shopping advice through smart image recognition." You'll be able to point the LG V30's camera at a product and Vision AI will perform an image search to give you "shopping options including where to purchase the item for the lowest price and other similar products" you might like.
Looking ahead, LG is planning more artificial intelligence features for its smartphones. New handsets will come bundled with the AI features and LG plans to deliver the features to some already-available LG handsets via over-the-air software updates.
"Creating smarter smartphones will be our focus going forward," LG Electronics Mobile senior vice president and business unit leader Ha Jeung-uk said in a statement.
