Microsoft has acquired Nuance Communications, the speech recognition AI company which helped* power Siri.
Microsoft snapped up Nuance for a massive $16 billion ($19.7 billion, inclusive of Nuance’s net debt). That’s the most it has spent on a company since buying LinkedIn for $26 billion in 2016.
iOS 14’s built-in pornographic content blocker stymies searches that include the word “Asian,” according to a computer science student.
This means searches for “Asian food” or “Asian countries” are blocked if the adult content filters are enabled. Similar blocks aren’t in place for search terms including “black,” “white,” “Arab,” “French” and other national or racial descriptors.
For people with non-standard speech — such as those who have experienced strokes, neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s, or developmental disorders — communicating with an AI assistant like Amazon’s Alexa isn’t quite as seamless as it is for many.
With that in mind, a speech recognition startup for atypical speech, called Voiceitt, has developed an accessibility app for iOS that improves Alexa. Here’s how it works.
Apple earlier this year snapped up an AI video company, Bloomberg reports. The Barcelona-based Vilynx uses AI technology to help analyze videos to understand what it shows by looking at text, visuals, and audio. This can be used to make the videos more easily searchable.
According to the report, Apple could use this tech to make its Photos app better by allowing users to search videos for people and objects the same way they currently can search photos. It could also help make Siri smarter or improve recommendations in the TV app and more.
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.
Impressive artificial intelligence that delivers some of the most convincing facial effects has made FaceApp incredibly popular in recent weeks. But there’s some concern over what happens to your photos when you use it.
The good news is FaceApp won’t steal your entire photo library. However, some of your images will end up on its servers.
Instagram is adding more muscle to fight bullying, including one tool that appeals to a harasser’s conscious.
Instagram has been addressing online harassment over the last couple of years with options to block followers and report offensive items. But for the first time, artificial intelligence will hold an intervention with a would-be bully.
Self-driving car startup Drive.ai is reportedly shutting down — and Apple is scooping up the talent.
Drive.ai, which made kits that turn regular cars into self-driving cars, notified the Employment Development Department of California that it was shutting down and laying off all 90 of its employees. Apple was reportedly looking into acquiring the company earlier this month. Instead, Cupertino decided to just hire some of its key employees.
Watch out Amazon. Apple is moving into your neighborhood.
The iPhone-maker reportedly is set to lease a large office complex building in Seattle’s South Lake Union neighborhood that is also the home Amazon’s HQ.
Google Glass is officially moving out of Alphabet’s “moon shot factory” to become an official Google product.
The search engine giant revealed its new Glass Enterprise Edition 2 spectacles today only instead of trying to reach mass appeal with consumers, Google is focused solely on making Glass great for businesses.
One of Google’s top AI experts has left the company to join Apple’s special projects group.
Ian Goodfellow, who created an AI approach called general adversarial networks (GANs), was hired by Apple as a director of machine learning, adding another prominent Google AI expert to its growing team.
An Apple employee was allegedly illegally harassed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) while passing through Customs. Andreas Gal, founder of Silk Labs, an AI startup acquired by Apple, says he was asked for the passwords to his Apple-issued phone and computer.
When he asked to speak with a lawyer, due to the contents being covered by a nondisclosure agreement, CBP officials reportedly refused. Instead, Gal was threatened with prosecution.
Pixelmator’s new photo editing app will finally arrive on iPad next week.
Pixelmator Photo offers a collection of nondestructive, desktop-class editing tools with RAW photo support. It also boasts artificial intelligence that makes adjusting things like white balance, exposure, and color a breeze.
Around 20 members of the Lighthouse team are now working at Apple, according to a new report.
The hires, which include two company co-founders, come after Apple acquired a bunch of Lighthouse’s home security patents earlier this month. An email sent to customers this week requested permission to transfer security camera data with Apple.
Apple recently acquired a startup that could soon help the iPhone-maker deliver better backend tools to iOS and macOS developers.
Stamplay, an Italian startup that specialized in building a “low code workflow automation” platform, was reportedly purchased by Apple for about $5.6 million. The acquisition hasn’t been confirmed by Apple but there are some telltale signs that Stamplay’s tech has found a new home.
Apple bought a small startup that created an app that used machine learning to auotomically find news articles users would be interested in.
The acquisition of Laserlike is expected to bolster Apple’s artificial intelligence efforts.
