Apple is beefing up its Artificial Intelligence tech with the purchase of Perceptio, a small startup that worked on creating advanced AI systems on smartphones.
Perceptio’s specialization was figuring out how to run complex neural network algorithms without needing to share as much user data. That would seem to fall in line with Apple’s goal of providing more robust features for Siri without compromising users’ privacy in the process.
A new acquisition from Apple suggests that the iPhone maker might be getting into the map-making business.
The company paid as much as $30 million for a 12-person San Francisco startup that specializes in parsing location data into visualizations, according to reports.
The rumor mill continues to churn about what the hell Apple is going to do with Beats Music. It’s been a year since Apple paid $3 billion to acquire the upstart music service and headphone maker, but we are no closer to understanding why Cupertino laid out the cash.
When Apple purchased Beats Music and Beats Electronics, it did so with a splash it generally reserves for the unveiling of a game-changing product like the Apple Watch. Since then, it’s basically been crickets.
It is clear Apple has a way to go to compete in the streaming music game against Spotify, Pandora and the other services scrambling to get a piece of the music industry pie. But what form will Apple’s next music play take?
Apple has confirmed its acquisition of Coherent Navigation, a GPS company with expertise in mapping and self-driving vehicles.
Founded in 2008, Coherent Navigation is one of the leading companies behind what is known as High Integrity GPS or — appropriately enough for Apple — iGPS. Unlike regular GPS, which is accurate only within meters, iGPS’ high level of accuracy means it can provide geographic positioning data within centimeters.
Steve Wozniak thinks he and co-founder Steve Jobs could never have found employment at the company they created together, had they been in their twenties in 2015.
“I look at the experience and education levels you need to get a job at Apple today and I think, ‘Well, Steve Jobs and I never could’ve gotten a job at Apple today,'” Woz told The Australian Financial Review in an interview.
The reason, he says, is that the rigorous Apple hiring process (like the ones at other tech giants like Google and Microsoft) would never have favored two college dropouts like himself and Jobs. This bias means the companies are potentially missing out on finding the next person to come along with a world-changing idea.
Apple has bought a boring database company you’ve never heard of called FoundationDB. While not as sexy as buying Beats, the acquisition is good news for Apple’s increasingly important cloud services.
The Virginia-based startup, which has raised a little over $20 million in funding, specializes in handling large chunks of data very quickly. TechCrunch first reported news of the acquisition.
Apple could definitely use help on the server side, especially after its cloud services just recently suffered the worst outage in their history. With the iTunes Store, App Store, iCloud, iMessage, Siri, and a forthcoming TV service, Apple needs all the data power it can get. Hopefully FoundationDB will help.
When you’re a company with the kind of bank that Apple has, it’s no wonder that you’d be a target for patent trolls.
Well, it seems that the trolls are out from under their bridge again, because Secure Web Conference Corporation based out of Melville, New York has filed a new patent infringement lawsuit against Apple, claiming that its FaceTime technology (and the hardware it’s currently running on) infringes on an earlier patent.
Apple has dropped a new version of its iTunes app, solving a continuing problem for podcast listeners where subscribed podcasts stop updating with new episodes.
The iTunes version 11.3.1 refresh also fixes another podcast related issue, which saw iTunes become unresponsive while browsing through different podcast episodes.
Apple is reportedly gearing up to buy Beats Electronics, the headphone manufacturer co-founded by Dr. Dre and music producer Jimmy Iovine that has also spun off a streaming-music service.
The deal could cost $3.2 billion, according to The Financial Times, and would give Apple full control of the brand that’s made gigantic flashy headphones the trendiest thing to hit kids’ heads since backward baseball caps.
Does this mean Dr. Dre is about to become the newest Apple employee?
The complications behind creating a small screen for something like an iWatch are immense, but Apple has bought the company it may need to make it all possible.
TechCrunch reports that Apple has acquired LuxVue Technology, a small California-based company that specializes in “microLED-based displays for consumer electronics applications.” It turns out that microLEDs could work very well with wearables.