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Apple acquires AI startup Silk Labs

By Cookie Monster - on 22 Nov 2018, 12:00am

Apple acquires AI startup Silk Labs

Apple is bolstering its AI efforts with the latest acquisition of Silk Labs, an AI startup founded by Andreas Gal who previously served as Mozilla's Chief Technology Officer. 

The Information claims that the acquisition happened earlier this year and the deal is likely to be a small one as Silk Labs only had about a dozen employees. Silk Labs also raised an estimated US$4 million in funding based on data provided by research firm PitchBook. 

Prior to the acquisition, Silk Labs' website stated that it strived to "bring next-generation visual and audio intelligence to connected products" with "state-of-the-art image and audio recognition." These technologies have several potential uses in home security, retail analytics, digital display metrics, access control, and building surveillance with capabilities like people detection, facial recognition, audio detection and object recognition. 

One possible reason for Apple to acquire Silk Labs is the latter's focus on privacy-forward AI experience. This makes sense as Apple is a long-time advocate on data privacy and Silk Labs' technologies could help Apple enhance the AI experience in its products while keeping users' data private at the same time. 

Source: The Information via MacRumors

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