According to The Information's Aaron Tilley, Apple has quietly acquired a startup called, Silk Labs that specializes in making artificial intelligence software. The acquisition, which hasn’t been reported before, occurred earlier this year, according to a person briefed on the transaction.
The firms software covers people detection, facial recognition, object recognition and audio detection for starters. Silk adds on their website that they bring next-generation visual and audio intelligence to connected products.
The founders of the company Andreas Gal, Chris Jones, Michael Vines are not yet listed on LinkedIn as being associated with Apple. No entries have been made on the Silk Labs Twitter account since August 2017.
One of the Characteristics of Silk Labs Apple must have appreciated is their stance on "Privacy by Design." The company notes that "Privacy and security is built into our company’s DNA. With every line of code we write and in every design decision we make, Silk takes great measures to ensure that user data on the Silk Intelligence Platform is fully protected at all times.
For more on Silk Labs, check out their website here. Other AI company acquisitions Apple has made since 2016 include Asaii, Turi, Lattice Data and Vocal IQ.