A new report posted today claims that Apple has acquired Seattle based Xnor.ai, a spin-off from Paul Allen’s Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence. XNOR.ai aimed at making state-of-the-art AI capabilities cheaper and more accessible.

GeekWire notes in their exclusive report that "The arrangement suggests that Xnor’s AI-enabled image recognition tools could well become standard features in future iPhones and webcams." You could read more about this report here.

Learning of the acquisition Patently Apple checked out Xnor.ai's LinkedIn page. The company profile states that the company "brings highly efficient, super powerful AI to edge devices such as cameras, cars, drones, wearables and IoT devices.

The Xnor platform allows product developers to run complex deep learning algorithms -- previously restricted to the cloud -- locally, on a wide range of devices. This new, highly-scalable approach ensures complete privacy of data, eliminates the need for connectivity, and significantly reduces memory load, and power demands, all delivered at the lowest cost, without compromising accuracy or performance.

Xnor is a venture funded startup, founded on award winning research conducted at the University of Washington and the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence.

Xnor’s industry-leading technology is used by global corporations in aerospace, automotive, retail, photography, consumer electronics and government."

In September 2019 Forbes listed Xnor.ai on their Top 50 Most Promising Artificoal Intelligence companies in America.  

To get a better idea of what Apple  is inheriting from the Xnori.ai acquisition you'll find a three corporate videos showcasing a wide range of technology applications.

The videos are likely to be yanked by Apple in the coming hours or days so as to keep Xnori.ai's applications secret. Apple has done this a number of times in the past like they did in our report on the Metaio acquisition. 

'Image Segmentation

The first video is a very interesting one that Apple could adopt fairly quickly called 'Image Segmentation.' It generates a blur to video like a bokeh like effect for new iPhones with the press of a button.

Theoretically, one advantage would be to hide from view any information in your background while in a FaceTime chat with friends or clients. Information that would be best kept secret, like a large slide of your company's profit chart for the quarter or that poster of your ex-girlfriend giving you the finger that you just can't part with.   

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