Apple Purchases Machine Learning Startup Laserlike

[partsofspeech]

Purchasing another company makes a CEO feels important and looks as if he is doing something useful for his own company. But unfortunately track records have shown it’s a beginning of downfall of many great enterprises previously.

 

[DoctorTech]

another Apple acquisition targeting the collection and abuse of user data

I have not seen anything from Apple to make me think they are abusing my data. They purposely collect as little as possible, leave as much of that as they can on device, and anonymize collected data where ever possible to the best of their ability. They have had a couple of bugs recently that created privacy vulnerabilities but they quickly addressed them and I would put a bug in a completely different category from targeting the collection of data. Unless Apple gives me a reason to doubt them, I will give them the benefit of doubt that they are sticking to their core principals and trying their best to protect user privacy.

 

[Octavius8]

"Acquired last year...". So, it is news today because...?
Sadly Apple has purchased many companies just to avoid that possible competitors acquire those companies sooner. I doubt Apple can do or is willing to do something of value for customers with this acqusition. Let's hope I am wrong.
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I have not seen anything from Apple to make me think they are abusing my data. They purposely collect as little as possible, leave as much of that as they can on device, and anonymize collected data where ever possible to the best of their ability. They have had a couple of bugs recently that created privacy vulnerabilities but they quickly addressed them and I would put a bug in a completely different category from targeting the collection of data. Unless Apple gives me a reason to doubt them, I will give them the benefit of doubt that they are sticking to their core principals and trying their best to protect user privacy.

How about the absolute inability of Siri doing the most simple task without internet access?, like "call x", without internet. It just "does not work", how come if "most of the information is kept on the phone"?. Or add 2 numbers?, etc.

 

[Tech198]

Adaptive technology would be good as well

 

[jeffe]

Apple desperately needs with. One of Google Assistants best features IMO is delivering news of topics you're interested in, which Google automatically seemingly compiles in the background as you use Chrome. It is really great and they have provided me with a ton of articles of interest to me on niche topics that I wouldn't have found otherwise.

 

[Kevin2055]

Apple has no better AI technology than a startup?

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: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

 

[Baymowe335]

Purchasing another company makes a CEO feels important and looks as if he is doing something useful for his own company. But unfortunately track records have shown it’s a beginning of downfall of many great enterprises previously.

What are you talking about?
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Apple has no better AI technology than a startup?

What a silly conclusion.

 

[DoctorTech]

"Acquired last year...". So, it is news today because...?
Sadly Apple has purchased many companies just to avoid that possible competitors acquire those companies sooner. I doubt Apple can do or is willing to do something of value for customers with this acqusition. Let's hope I am wrong.
[doublepost=1552546228][/doublepost]

How about the absolute inability of Siri doing the most simple task without internet access?, like "call x", without internet. It just "does not work", how come if "most of the information is kept on the phone"?. Or add 2 numbers?, etc.

It is my understanding that the conversion of "speech to meaning" takes place on Apple servers rather than on device. So even if you make a simple request like setting a reminder, Siri on your device still needs the power of Apple's servers to decipher the sound waves picked up by the device's microphone and translate that into the action of actually setting the reminder (this may have changed in the last year or two as the processing power in new phones has continued to increase but I am 95% sure this is the way Siri was originally designed to operate).

Assuming this is correct, I would still not consider this an abuse of my data. Apple could log the fact that a request was made to set a reminder (to better understand what customers are doing with Siri) without ever logging which customer made the request or what the actual reminder was about. In contrast, Facebook and Google would probably log all the details (Joe Smith set a remember to pick up a tube of Preparation H at the drug store) so they could sell that information about Joe to advertisers.