Apple's Beats brand in April unveiled the Powerbeats Pro, a redesigned wire-free version of its popular fitness-oriented Powerbeats earbuds.
Apple Purchases Machine Learning Startup Laserlike
Apple last year acquired Laserlike, a machine learning startup located in Silicon Valley, reports The Information. Apple's purchase of the four-year-old company was confirmed by an Apple spokesperson with a standard acquisition statement: "Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans."
Laserlike's website says that its core mission is to deliver "high quality information and diverse perspectives on any topic from the entire web to you."
The company built a search app that used discovery and personalization machine learning techniques to build a Laserlike app described as an "interest search engine" that provided news, web, video, and local content relevant to each user. The Laserlike app is no longer available following the acquisition, but the company's website continues to cover what it was focused on:
Giannandrea has been tasked with improving Apple's machine learning initiatives and bolstering Siri, the company's voice assistant. Laserlike's technology could potentially allow Siri to learn more about Apple users to provide more tailored, personalized content.
Laserlike's website says that its core mission is to deliver "high quality information and diverse perspectives on any topic from the entire web to you."
The company built a search app that used discovery and personalization machine learning techniques to build a Laserlike app described as an "interest search engine" that provided news, web, video, and local content relevant to each user. The Laserlike app is no longer available following the acquisition, but the company's website continues to cover what it was focused on:
We live in a world of information abundance, where the main problem is sifting through the noise and discovering the stuff you actually care about. For instance, if you care about knowing when the next SpaceX livestream launch is because you like to watch it with your kids, or if the car you bought two years ago has had a recall, or if a company you're interested in announces it's opening a new office where you live, or if there's a music festival coming to your town, you don't know when to look for these things, and there's no product that informs you automatically.The Information suggests that Apple will use the Laserlike acquisition to strengthen its artificial intelligence efforts, including Siri. The Laserlike team has joined the Apple AI group led by new Apple AI chief John Giannandrea, who came to Apple from Google last year.
This is one of the things we want to fix on the Internet. Laserlike's core mission is to deliver high quality information and diverse perspectives on any topic from the entire web. We are passionate about helping people follow their interests and engage with new perspectives.
Giannandrea has been tasked with improving Apple's machine learning initiatives and bolstering Siri, the company's voice assistant. Laserlike's technology could potentially allow Siri to learn more about Apple users to provide more tailored, personalized content.
[ 32 comments ]
Top Rated Comments
(View all)
18 weeks ago
Red Hat Linux:
https://www.redhat.com/en/technologies/linux-platforms/enterprise-linux
Also:
* On November 15, 1999, Red Hat acquired Cygnus Solutions ('https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cygnus_Solutions').
* Later Red Hat acquired WireSpeed, C2Net ('https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C2Net') and Hell's Kitchen Systems.
* Red Hat acquired Planning Technologies, Inc in 2001 and AOL ('https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL')'s iPlanet ('https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPlanet') directory and certificate-server software in 2004.
* Red Hat acquired open-source middleware provider JBoss ('https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JBoss_(company)') on June 5, 2006, and JBoss became a division of Red Hat.
* In 2007 Red Hat acquired MetaMatrix ('https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MetaMatrix') and made an agreement with Exadel ('https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Exadel&action=edit&redlink=1') to distribute its software.
* On March 15, 2007, Red Hat released Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, and in June acquired Mobicents ('https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobicents'). On March 13, 2008, Red Hat acquired Amentra, a provider of systems integration services for service-oriented architecture ('https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service-oriented_architecture'), business process management ('https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_process_management'), systems development ('https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_development') and enterprise data services.
* On October 16, 2015, Red Hat announced its acquisition of IT automation startup Ansible ('https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansible_(software)'), rumored for an estimated $100 million USD.
* In May 2018, Red Hat acquired CoreOS ('https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CoreOS').
and
On October 28, 2018, IBM ('https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM') announced its intent to acquire Red Hat for US$34 billion, in one of its largest-ever acquisitions. The company will operate out of IBM's Hybrid Cloud division.
18 weeks ago
I wonder if this could help out with improving Siri's knowledge of general topics, rather than defaulting to suggesting a web search.
18 weeks ago
[Laserlike's website says that its core mission is to deliver "high quality information and diverse perspectives on any topic from the entire web to you."]
Hmm, that description is so generic it could have come out of a buzzword generator.
Hmm, that description is so generic it could have come out of a buzzword generator.
18 weeks ago
Laserlike's website says that its core mission is to deliver "high quality information...."
I hope Apple learns to stop delivering information via low-contrast text on blinding white backgrounds with a virtual minimum of context-defining borders/zones/buttons but a maximum of space-wasting screen arrangements.
18 weeks ago
Please, Apple, I hope this doesn't mean that you will start collecting more data from us than necessary. These things need a lot of data to effectively deliver what they promise.
Collection is fine as long as it is processed and remains on device like many of their initiatives currently do.
18 weeks ago
Joke: How many acquisitions does it take Apple to make Siri competent?
Answer: Here's what I found on the web for Imagine Dragons.
Answer: Here's what I found on the web for Imagine Dragons.
18 weeks ago
Joke: How many acquisitions does it take Apple to make Siri competent?
Answer: Here's what I found on the web for Imagine Dragons.
2.5 years of dating Erin (and 3,478 manual correction of iMessage voice dictation) and Siri still thinks I’m dating some dude named Aaron.
18 weeks ago
This sounds like a great idea, Siri can use all the help she can get. I typically just receive a web search suggestion. Although a truly helpful assistant would need to collect much more personal information about me. That would seem to fly in the face of Apples privacy standards.
18 weeks ago
another Apple acquisition targeting the collection and abuse of user data
I have not seen anything from Apple to make me think they are abusing my data. They purposely collect as little as possible, leave as much of that as they can on device, and anonymize collected data where ever possible to the best of their ability. They have had a couple of bugs recently that created privacy vulnerabilities but they quickly addressed them and I would put a bug in a completely different category from targeting the collection of data. Unless Apple gives me a reason to doubt them, I will give them the benefit of doubt that they are sticking to their core principals and trying their best to protect user privacy.[ Read All Comments ]
Apple today seeded the fifth beta of an upcoming macOS Mojave 10.14.6 update to developers, one week after seeding the fourth macOS Mojave 10.14.6 beta and two months after the release of macOS...
Twitter today announced the launch of a new Twitter.com experience on the desktop, which includes several new features and design changes.
The Twitter website on desktop has a whole new look...
Airmail users awoke today to find out that the popular email app has switched to a subscription-based pricing model on the iPhone and iPad.
Airmail for iOS is now free to download on the App...
An interesting piece of technology history was highlighted by The Verge over the weekend that may be of interest to Apple users both young and old.
Amateur computer historian Kevin Savetz...
It was another big week for Apple news this week, with Apple launching its annual Back to School promotion and taking the opportunity to update some of its lower-end Mac notebook lineup. The refresh...
There are a few deals going on as we head into the weekend, including an ongoing discount on the latest AirPods update, a sitewide discount on Pad & Quill, and deep discounts on Apple's iPad...
Apple and McDonald's have teamed up to offer free fries every Friday in July.
Today, and on July 19 and July 26, customers can use Apple Pay in the McDonald's app and get free medium...
Hulu today launched support for 4K streaming on the Apple TV 4K and Chromecast Ultra, after first removing 4K content from its service in the summer of 2018 (via The Streamable).
With the...
