1. An apparatus to identify an unknown object in an image based on a a first histogram of gradient (HoG) descriptor, the apparatus comprising: a hardware accelerator including a gradient vector generator to generate a plurality of gradient vectors for a plurality of pixels of the image; a HoG estimator module to determine orientation angles for the plurality of gradient vectors; a HoG binning module including: a plurality of comparators to identify orientation bins associated with the orientation angles corresponding to the gradient vectors; and a plurality of accumulators to add contributions of the gradient vectors to the identified orientation bins, the orientation bins populated with the contributions forming the first HoG descriptor; a database including a plurality of stored HoG descriptors, the plurality of stored HoG descriptors corresponding to a plurality of known objects; a processor to identify the unknown object as a first known object of the plurality of known objects when the first HoG descriptor matches a first stored HoG descriptor corresponding to the first known object.