Apple Purchases Machine Learning Startup Laserlike

[MacRumors]

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:

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.

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.

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.

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.

Article Link: Apple Purchases Machine Learning Startup Laserlike

 

[lunarworks]

I wonder if this could help out with improving Siri's knowledge of general topics, rather than defaulting to suggesting a web search.

 

[StellarVixen]

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.

 

[JetTester]

[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.

 

[genovelle]

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.

 

[StellarVixen]

Collection is fine as long as it is processed and remains on device like many of their initiatives currently do.

I sincerely hope it will stay that way.

 

[Marcus PM]

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.

 

[WatchFromAfar]

I wonder if this could help out with improving Siri's knowledge of general topics, rather than defaulting to suggesting a web search.

I wonder if the people at Apple are so piss-poor that sites like this are encouraged by the fact Apple has bought people that didn't work for Apple.

 

[Tozovac]

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.

 

[lunarworks]

I wonder if the people at Apple are so piss-poor that sites like this are encouraged by the fact Apple has bought people that didn't work for Apple.

Name me a big tech company that hasn't purchased smaller companies to improve their own products and services.

 

[iFanaddic]

Sounds VERY interesting to me.

 

[WatchFromAfar]

Name me a big tech company that hasn't purchased smaller companies to improve their own products and services.

Red Hat Linux:

https://www.redhat.com/en/technologies/linux-platforms/enterprise-linux

 

[lunarworks]

Red Hat Linux:

https://www.redhat.com/en/technologies/linux-platforms/enterprise-linux

Cool. I didn't know Mr. Red Hat wrote Linux.

Also:

• On November 15, 1999, Red Hat acquired Cygnus Solutions.
• Later Red Hat acquired WireSpeed, C2Net and Hell's Kitchen Systems.
  
• Red Hat acquired Planning Technologies, Inc in 2001 and AOL's iPlanet directory and certificate-server software in 2004.
  
• Red Hat acquired open-source middleware provider JBoss on June 5, 2006, and JBoss became a division of Red Hat.
• In 2007 Red Hat acquired MetaMatrix and made an agreement with Exadel to distribute its software.
• On March 15, 2007, Red Hat released Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, and in June acquired Mobicents. On March 13, 2008, Red Hat acquired Amentra, a provider of systems integration services for service-oriented architecture, business process management, systems development and enterprise data services.
• On October 16, 2015, Red Hat announced its acquisition of IT automation startup Ansible, rumored for an estimated $100 million USD.
• In May 2018, Red Hat acquired CoreOS.

and

On October 28, 2018, 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.

 

[realtuner]

Name me a big tech company that hasn't purchased smaller companies to improve their own products and services.

Google.

Oh wait, sorry. Outside of search can anyone name a Google service that WASN’T a purchase? That’s literally all they do.

 

[Kabeyun]

Any news potentially connected to making Siri smarter makes me happy.

 

[TracesOfArsenic]

Joke: How many acquisitions does it take Apple to make Siri competent?
Answer: Here's what I found on the web for Imagine Dragons.

 

[jerryk]

[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.

Maybe a buzzword generator was why Apple bought Laserlike?

 

[Tesix2]

another Apple acquisition targeting the collection and abuse of user data

 

[deebinem]

Joke: How many acquisitions does it take Apple to make Siri competent?
Answer: Here's what I found on the web for Imagine Dragons.

Ugh, even Siri likes that damn "band"? I think I just threw up in my mouth a little bit...

 

[Tozovac]

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.

 

[Blackwell]

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.

49 20 6d 69 73 73 20 74 68 65 20 77 69 6e 6b 20 41 76 61 74 61 72

 

[StellarVixen]

49 20 6d 69 73 73 20 74 68 65 20 77 69 6e 6b 20 41 76 61 74 61 72

OMG, a hex riddle? Is this how we are gonna communicate? Fine.

53 74 69 63 6b 20 74 6f 20 74 68 65 20 74 6f 70 69 63 2c 20 70 6c 65 61 73 65 2e

 

[cb3]

"Siri, I'ld like to find a tutor in my area."

Answer: Let me get this straight. You would like to find tofu in your hair-net?

 

[Blackwell]

OMG, a hex riddle? Is this how we are gonna communicate? Fine.

53 74 69 63 6b 20 74 6f 20 74 68 65 20 74 6f 70 69 63 2c 20 70 6c 65 61 73 65 2e

OMG, a hex riddle? Is this how we are gonna communicate? Fine.

53 74 69 63 6b 20 74 6f 20 74 68 65 20 74 6f 70 69 63 2c 20 70 6c 65 61 73 65 2e

Sometimes I get bored and drift around. Great posts btw

 

[ipponrg]

I wonder if this could help out with improving Siri's knowledge of general topics, rather than defaulting to suggesting a web search.

Considering Siri was a purchase in itself, this sounds like a purchase to fix/update/improve a prior purchase. I look forward to more AI/ML purchases to the Siri stack to indirectly let us know how botched the original purchase was