Apple Acquires Silk Labs To Focus On AI-Based Personal Assistants And IoT Devices

In a move to improve their artificial intelligence- based personal assistants and another internet of things projects, Apple Inc has acquired a San Francisco-based startup. Silk Labs is doing some cutting-edge work on next-generation visual and audio intelligence to connected products using deep neural networks. Reports have suggested that Apple completed the takeover relatively quietly and has not disclosed the sum publicly yet. Silk Labs has been founded by noted personalities like Andreas Gal, the former CTO of Mozilla and Michael Vines from Qualcomm. Silk Labs' AI platform is heavy on privacy, which is very important for all Apple devices. It works as follows: Sends Only Key Learning Moments: Instead of sending a constant stream of video to the cloud for training, Silk’s advanced algorithms only capture key learning moments. Sends Only Anonymised Data: Protecting user privacy and data becomes even more critical when a continuous camera stream is involved. Rather than uploading raw data for training, Silk’s innovative learning service improves models using anonymized data that is not reversible back to the original content. Privacy By Design: With coding as well as design, Silk takes great measures to ensure that user data on the Silk Intelligence Platform is fully protected at all times. Apple, whose HomePod is a distant third behind Amazon's Echo and Google's Home, has been working hard towards improving its AI-enabled products. Reports have suggested that Amazon and Google account for 70 per cent share of the global smart speaker shipments in the first quarter of 2018, with Apple selling 600,000 HomePods in the period.