Apple has purchased AlgoTrim, a Swedish firm specializing in image and video compression techniques, for an unspecified price. It could pave the way to better iOS device battery life, and much improved photo and video quality across Apple line-up of devices.
What does AlgoTrim do? They essentially build codecs that maximize data, mobile imaging, and computer graphics performance while minimizing power drain. Techcrunch explains:
AlgoTrim deals in all kinds of data compression, and promised to deliver imaging solutions that would deliver “modern computational photography” to mobile devices. Computational photography essentially uses sensors, computing, actuators, intelligent lights and other components to go beyond the current limitations of digital photography, which is based primarily on its analog, film-based precedent. The basic idea is to provide much more accurate images, with sophisticated lighting and vastly improved rendering by straying away from a strictly 2D, pixel-based model of image representation.
In other words, an AlgoTrim acquisition could help Apple compete in image quality with more bulky, less-efficient but much higher quality solutions like Nokia’s PureView oversampling system. AlgoTrim technology could help your iPhone’s camera work better in low-light conditions, or more accurately capture the lighting in any given scene. Sounds like a smart acquisition to me.
Source: Rapidus
Via: Techcrunch