Microsoft Acquires Apple Target R2 Studios
In late December, it was reported that Apple was one of three companies, with Google and Microsoft being the others, in talks to acquire home automation firm R2 Studios. The Wall Street Journal is now reporting that Microsoft has acquired the firm to beef up its Xbox unit.
The company, id8 Group R2 Studios Inc., was created by entrepreneur Blake Krikorian in May 2011. Mr. Krikorian will be joining the Redmond, Wash., software giant with a small team. As part of the deal, Microsoft also acquired some patents owned by the startup related to controlling electronic devices.
The price of the deal couldn't be learned.
R2 has reportedly been working to expand its existing business focused on Android software to control Crestron home automation systems to develop technology for distributing digital media to television sets.
The report notes that Microsoft has been working hard to transform its Xbox platform into a digital media hub, striking deals with HBO, Netflix, YouTube, Comcast, and Time Warner for on-demand and Web video.
Apple is of course also rumored to be interested in the television market beyond its existing Apple TV set-top box. Apple has reportedly been working on both new set-top boxes and Internet-connected television sets as part of an effort to remake the television viewing experience, but progress has been slow due to complicated negotiations with content providers.
Popular Stories
Apple today released several open source large language models (LLMs) that are designed to run on-device rather than through cloud servers. Called OpenELM (Open-source Efficient Language Models), the LLMs are available on the Hugging Face Hub, a community for sharing AI code. As outlined in a white paper [PDF], there are eight total OpenELM models, four of which were pre-trained using the...
Apple is set to unveil iOS 18 during its WWDC keynote on June 10, so the software update is a little over six weeks away from being announced. Below, we recap rumored features and changes planned for the iPhone with iOS 18. iOS 18 will reportedly be the "biggest" update in the iPhone's history, with new ChatGPT-inspired generative AI features, a more customizable Home Screen, and much more....
Apple has announced it will be holding a special event on Tuesday, May 7 at 7 a.m. Pacific Time (10 a.m. Eastern Time), with a live stream to be available on Apple.com and on YouTube as usual. The event invitation has a tagline of "Let Loose" and shows an artistic render of an Apple Pencil, suggesting that iPads will be a focus of the event. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more ...
Apple has dropped the number of Vision Pro units that it plans to ship in 2024, going from an expected 700 to 800k units to just 400k to 450k units, according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Orders have been scaled back before the Vision Pro has launched in markets outside of the United States, which Kuo says is a sign that demand in the U.S. has "fallen sharply beyond expectations." As a...
Apple is finally planning a Calculator app for the iPad, over 14 years after launching the device, according to a source familiar with the matter. iPadOS 18 will include a built-in Calculator app for all iPad models that are compatible with the software update, which is expected to be unveiled during the opening keynote of Apple's annual developers conference WWDC on June 10. AppleInsider...
Best Buy is discounting a collection of M3 MacBook Pro computers today, this time focusing on the 14-inch version of the laptop. Every deal in this sale requires you to have a My Best Buy Plus or Total membership, although non-members can still get solid second-best prices on these MacBook Pro models. Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with Best Buy. When you click a link and make a...
Top Rated Comments
Expect Apple to acquire C3 and P0 in response.
And seriously, Apple fans, writing MS as M$ is akin Chris Farley calling John Candy for "fat bastard". It is so ridiculous it's beyond belief - but hey it says a lot about individuals' critical sense and naivité.
Nobody should be able to buy stuff before A$$le.
It should, like, be a law, you know, or sumpin'.
Maybe A$$le found out they couldn't trademark
the letter r and the number 2. Sadness.