Wondering what Montreal-based Matrox has been doing since it conceded the graphics card wars to NVIDIA and ATI a few years ago? Besides building lots of great video editing equipment, the company has been working on Iris GT, a smart camera that's packed with processing power and might just be a body part of our future robot overlords.

A 1.6GHz Atom processor gives the camera its smarts, with enough computing power to measure objects, read barcodes and even recognize text. How might such tech be deployed? It'll be used in machines of all kinds, but the application it's best suited for: A robot's eye.

So this could be the real version of the inner workings of the unblinking gaze of HAL 9000 from 2001: a Space Odyssey? Maybe if we compliment its attractive violet eye color, it'll open the pod bay doors for us.

Via Electronista