Apple has launched a new artificial intelligence and machine learning residency program for people from other STEM disciplines wanting to “dip their toe” into the world of cutting edge machine learning.

Michael Rennaker, manager of Apple in Research Academia (ARIA), announced the new initiative on Twitter. The program seeks experts in fields like design, linguistics, neuroscience, and psychology whose interests may cross over with AI.

Apple is using machine learning technology in more and more of its features, John Giannandrea, the company’s senior vice president for machine learning and AI strategy, reveals in a new interview with Ars Technica.

Giannandrea, who joined Apple from a job at Google, said “there are increasingly fewer and fewer places in iOS where we’re not using machine learning.” This stands in strong contrast to a few years ago — and even the point at which Giannandrea landed his Apple job.

Apple has upgraded its Core ML machine learning framework, adding the ability for developers to update their machine learning models on the fly, the company revealed Wednesday.

The ability to update artificial intelligence models outside of the usual app update cycle means that devs can quickly improve the machine learning smarts of particular apps without having to push out an update. That’s huge news for any app developers who feature AI components within their apps.

Apple is seemingly looking to step up its work in speech translation, showing one more way that Cupertino is looking to incorporate cutting-edge approaches to artificial intelligence into what it does.

In a recent paper, published to the pre-print server arXiv, two Apple research scientists describe the challenges in the field, carrying out a fundamental survey of the problems with current speech translation.

No, they don’t have a magical solution. But the fact that Apple gave them such a task suggests the company takes seriously the need to hone its tools in this area.

Apple has acquired Voysis, an artificial intelligence startup the high-tech company is expected to use to improve Siri and its natural language technology, based on published reports Friday.

When it comes to artificial intelligence (AI), Apple wants to have its cake and eat it, too. That is to say that it wants cutting edge data-driven machine learning on its devices, without violating its own user privacy pledge.

And you know what? It’s managing to pull it off — as the company’s latest AI startup acquisition underlines.

Apple purchased Xnor.ai, a company that creates artificial intelligence software for mobile devices. The acquisition will apparently lead to AI applications running directly on iPhones, iPads, etc., not outsourced to the cloud. This should make these tasks more private and quicker.

Today’s machine learning AI technologies frequently rely on the free flow of user data. That puts Apple in a tough spot.

While it wants to stay on the cutting edge of artificial intelligence, it doesn’t want to do anything to get in the way of its privacy-first approach to technology. Fortunately, there’s a way around that issue.

Microsoft has snapped up the former Siri boss, who left Apple earlier in May 2019.

Bill Stasior joined Apple in 2012, taking over control of the Siri team not long after it made its debut with the iPhone 4s. In his job at Microsoft, Stasior will be corporate vice president of technology.

Apple has teamed up with investors including Foxconn, Microsoft and… the National Bank of Kazakhstan to participate in a new “technology mega fund.”

The $108 billion fund is organized by SoftBank Group Corp. The goal is to focus on investing in A.I. related technologies.