Apple buys mobile artificial intelligence company, pocketable Skynet incoming

Apple has acquired Perceptio, a 45-year-old stage magician who specialises in sawing Vegas holidaymakers in half, with a 65% recombination success rate.

Okay, not really. But that would be quite something, wouldn’t it?

The Cupertino really has acquired Perceptio though – it’s a startup that’s working on artificial intelligence software designed for smartphones.

The difference between Perceptio’s work and existing AI software like Siri, is that its system is designed to run on smartphones while minimising reliance on the cloud.

That means that less user data is sent to external servers, with most of the computations remaining on devices themselves, which ultimately should make data more secure.

There’s no indication of when (or indeed, if) we’ll ever see a localised super-Siri on an iDevice anytime soon, and we expect both processing power and battery life to pose a major obstacle.

Still, it’s an interesting string to add to Apple’s already impressive bow, and we’re looking forward having a full conversation about last night’s match with our iPhone 9.

[Bloomberg]

Esat Dedezade Contributor

About

Esat has been a gadget fan ever since his tiny four-year-old brain was captivated by a sound-activated dancing sunflower. From there it was a natural progression to a Sega Mega Drive, a brief obsession with hedgehogs, and a love for all things tech. After 7 years as a writer and deputy editor for Stuff, Esat ventured out into the corporate world, spending three years as Editor of Microsoft's European News Centre. Now a freelance writer, his appetite for shiny gadgets has no bounds. Oh, and like all good human beings, he's very fond of cats.