Swedish news agency Rapidus reports (via TechCrunch) that Apple has acquired AlgoTrim for an undisclosed sum. The company is based in Malmö in southern Sweden and specializes in data compression algorithms for mobile phones, which have been developed for lossless compression of processing instructions in operating systems and applications. These algorithms increase processing power and reduce dependence on flash memory for more efficient performance.
The company has been focused on Android-based devices for the past few years and reported at the end of 2011 that its technology was present in around 100 million devices around the world. Despite its large user base, the company reported a mere 3 million SEK ($462,327) revenue in its latest year-end report.
In February of 2013, all of AlgoTrims shares were acquired by the anonymous Delaware-based holding company Wedgwood Industries LCC. But according to solid information revealed to Rapidus, Apple is the real buyer behind the deal.
Anders Holtsberg, head of software development at AlgoTrim, recently moved to Silicon Valley, a mere 15 minute car ride from Apples headquarters in Cupertino. When Rapidus calls him via Apples central switchboard, he confirms that he is now working for Apple but declines to comment any further. Anders Holtsberg, former CEO of AlgoTrim, is also very taciturn.
- I’m sorry but I’m not allowed to comment on anything, he says to Rapidus.
AlgoTrim is one of a string of companies acquired by Apple this year. Last week it was reported that the company had bought Embark, presumably to integrate its mass transit navigation system into Apple Maps. Embark currently has ten iOS apps in the App Store, focused on transit systems in the Boston, New York City, Washington D.C., Chicago, and San Francisco Bay areas. Other Apple acquisitions revealed over the past few months have included video discovery service Matcha.tv, Bluetooth Low-Energy chip company Passif Semiconductor, transit navigation service HopStop, and local business search firm Locationary.
Update: In an update to its original post, TechCrunch reports that Apple has confirmed the acquisition.
This all looks quite similar to technology that Apple is introducing in Mavericks. Except that according to the article, this would be specialised in compressing ARM instructions. Myself I would have thought that compressing data would be more important. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe the article is wrong.
RAM memory is slower than the processor. Because of that, the processor may need to wait for instructions to arrive from memory. Compressing the memory (with hardware) will thus speed up execution and also make more efficient use of RAM, so that less memory will be needed to run the system. RAM chips need constant supply of power to not lose their contents, so the compression will also help with battery life. That may be one reason why iOS devices have been equipped with fairly low amounts of RAM.
EDIT: Maybe I was getting a bit ahead of it - probably they are just supplying Apple with efficient software codecs. But given that Apple now designs it's own chips, the idea of compressed memory is plausible at least in the future.
Nice to see another technology company snapped up, rather than just a software company! I hope this tech leads to increased battery life as well as speed improvements.
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...
The upcoming iOS 17.5 update for the iPhone includes only a few new user-facing features, but hidden code changes reveal some additional possibilities. Below, we have recapped everything new in the iOS 17.5 and iPadOS 17.5 beta so far. Web Distribution Starting with the second beta of iOS 17.5, eligible developers are able to distribute their iOS apps to iPhone users located in the EU...
Wednesday April 24, 2024 3:39 pm PDT by Juli Clover
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 has stopped production of FineWoven accessories, according to the Apple leaker and prototype collector known as "Kosutami." In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Kosutami explained that Apple has stopped production of FineWoven accessories due to its poor durability. The company may move to another non-leather material for its premium accessories in the future. Kosutami has revealed...
Swedish news agency Rapidus reports (via TechCrunch) that Apple has acquired AlgoTrim for an undisclosed sum. The company is based in Malmö in southern Sweden and specializes in data compression algorithms for mobile phones, which have been developed for lossless compression of processing instructions in operating systems and applications. These algorithms increase processing power and reduce dependence on flash memory for more efficient performance.
Top Rated Comments
EDIT: Maybe I was getting a bit ahead of it - probably they are just supplying Apple with efficient software codecs. But given that Apple now designs it's own chips, the idea of compressed memory is plausible at least in the future.