21st Century Innovative Technologies and Developments as also discoveries, curiosity ( insolite)...

Microsoft übernimmt Altspace VR

Es ist eine Mischung aus Virtual-Reality-Facebook und Second Life, und nach finanziellen Schwierigkeiten hat es einen neuen Eigner: Altspace VR gehört künftig zu Microsoft.

Für einen nicht genannten Betrag will Microsoft das kalifornische Unternehmen Altspace VR und damit auch dessen gleichnamiges Onlineportal kaufen. Über Altspace VR können sich Anwender ähnlich wie bei einem sozialen Netzwerk miteinander verbinden - allerdings normalerweise nicht über 2D-Bildschirme, sondern über Virtual-Reality-Geräte.

Letztlich erinnert das Ganze entfernt an eine VR-Version von Second Life, in der es neben Minispielen auch Übertragungen von politischen Debatten und Stand-up-Comedy gibt.

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TechCrunch has learned that Apple has acquired a small French startup called Regaind, according to multiple sources. As always, Apple is very quiet when it comes to acquisitions, but it’s always interesting to learn more about Apple’s interests.

We’ve reached out to Apple and the company sent us the following statement: “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans.”

This is Apple’s standard statement to confirm an acquisition. From what I understand, Apple acquired Regaind earlier this year. The company had raised a bit less than $500,000 (€400,000) from Side Capital.

Regaind has been working on a computer vision API to analyze the content of photos. Apple added intelligent search to the Photos app on your iPhone a couple of years ago. For instance, you can search for “sunset” or “dog” to get photos of sunsets and your dog.

In order to do this, Apple analyzes your photo library when you’re sleeping. When you plug your iPhone to a charger and you’re not using your iPhone, your device is doing some computing to figure out what’s inside your photos.

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Microsoft today announced that it has acquired Cycle Computing, a twelve-year-old Connecticut-based company that focuses on helping enterprises orchestrate...

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Apple has acquired artificial intelligence startup Lattice Data for $200 million, according to a report in TechCrunch. 

The deal closed a few weeks ago and roughly 20 engineers from Lattice have joined Apple, according to the report, which cited an anonymous source. 

Lattice's technology focuses on "dark data," the mass of unorganized information stored in computer networks that is not in a proper format for companies to analyze or tap into. Lattice uses AI to make sense of all that data. 

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Google has acquired the VR game studio behind such popular gaming titles like Job Simulator and Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality.

In a blog post, the founding team of the Austin-based Owlchemy Labs detailed that it has been acquired and will be joining the team at Google. “Today is a REAAAALLY BIG day for Owlchemy. We’re positively thrilled to announce that Owlchemy Labs has been acquired by Google!”

Owlchemy Labs, founded in 2010, has raised $5 million in seed funding from Capital Factory, Qualcomm Ventures, Colopl VR Fund, HTC and The Venture Reality Fund.

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Mastercard said it is acquiring NuData so it can integrate its technology into its fraud management and security products.

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Apple kauft israelischen Gesichtserkennungsspezialisten
Apple soll das israelische Unternehmen Realface, das sich auf Gesichtserkennung spezialisiert hat, gekauft haben. Mit deren Technik könnte eine neue Authentifizierungsfunktion für iOS und MacOS einziehen.

Apple hat laut einem Bericht der israelischen Finanzwebsite Calcalist das Startup Realface übernommen, das sich auf Gesichtserkennung spezialisiert hat. Parallel dazu gibt es Berichte, dass in iOS künftig eine solche Technik verwendet werden solle, um neben dem Fingerabdruckscanner Touch ID eine weitere Methode zum Erkennen des Besitzers des Smartphones einzuführen oder Touch ID zu ersetzen.

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Google is taking over Twitter’s mobile app developer platform Fabric, as well as its Crashlytics crash reporting system, Answers mobile app analytics, Digits SMS login system, and FastLane development automation system. Twitter launched Fabric as a modular SDK in 2014 to allow developers to pick and choose different tools to improve their apps, and it now serves apps reaching 2.5 billion users built by 580,000 developers.

But as Twitter tries to get into better financial shape, it’s cutting non-essential divisions, as it did with its change from Vine to Vine Camera. By passing the platform off to Google, it can remove the costs of running Fabric without screwing over its developers by suddenly shutting it down. Google will continue to operate Fabric and its related tools, and developers shouldn’t have to do anything to support the transition.

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Google wants to know everywhere that you’re looking. Today, Eyefluence announced that it has been acquired by Google. The eye-tracking interface startup founded in 2013 had raised $21.6M in f…

Alphabet Inc's Google said on Thursday it is acquiring cloud software company Apigee Corp in a deal valued at about $625 million, the tech giant’s latest effort to claim a greater share of the lucrative cloud business.

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Microsoft said Thursday that it has acquired game livestreaming service Beam, a deal that allows the company access to the lucrative streaming and e-sports markets.

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Für 200 Millionen US-Dollar hat Apple offenbar das Startup Turi aus Seattle gekauft. Es hat sich auf künstliche Intelligenz und Maschinenlernen spezialisiert.

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Yahoo: Einigung mit Verizon über Übernahme

Seit mehreren Monaten ist Yahoo aktiv auf der Suche nach einem Käufer, nachdem Unternehmenschefin Marissa Mayer es in den vergangenen Jahren nicht geschafft hatte, das Ruder bei dem ins Trudeln geratenen Internetpionier herumzureißen. Jetzt soll der in dem Bieterwettstreit favorisierte US-Telekomkonzern Verizon den Zuschlag erhalten haben, wie die Nachrichtenagentur Bloomberg, das Wall Street Journal und die Financial Times unter Berufung auf unternehmensnahe Kreise übereinstimmend berichten.

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TechCrunch has learned that Amazon has acquired Body Labs, a company with a stated aim of creating true-to-life 3D body models to support various b2b software applications — such as virtually trying on clothes or photorealistic avatars for gaming.

One source suggested the price-tag Amazon paid for Body Labs could be $100M+. However a second well-placed source suggested it’s closer to $70M than $100M — so we’re pegging it at between $50M and $70M.

An Amazon spokeswoman declined to comment on the acquisition.

New York based Body Labs was founded in March 2013, according to CrunchBase, and had raised more than $10M across two investment rounds — closing an $8M Series A in November 2015.

The company says its AI, computer vision, and body modeling expertise stems from research started at Brown University and the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems.

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Apple kauft Hersteller von Bildanalyse-Software
Apple hat das französische Startup Regaind übernommen. Das Unternehmen hat eine Technik zur Bildanalyse entwickelt.
Das iPhone erkennt bald möglicherweise nicht nur, was auf einem Foto drauf ist, sondern auch das Bessere von zwei ähnlichen Fotos. Apple hat ein Unternehmen gekauft, dessen Software Bilder bewerten kann.

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Das israelische Startup Mobileye stellt Roboter-Augen her - auch in den selbstfahrenden Teslas steckt die Technologie. Jetzt hat sich Intel das Startup gekrallt: für 15,3 Milliarden Dollar.

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F-Secure has announced the acquisition of Digital Assurance to add security consultancy services to its portfolio.

With a legacy of offering assessment services to governments and companies in the financial, petrochemical, retail, communication and defense industries, UK-headquartered Digital Assurance will allow F-Secure to offer a wider range of products and services, and add an established team of cybersecurity specialists which will help F-Secure bring its advanced technology and security expertise to a greater number of organizations in the UK.

Digital Assurance develops a range of security testing, information assurance and security training products and services to reduce the cost and complexity of mandatory and regulatory compliance.

Through the acquisition, Digital Assurance will become part of F-Secure’s Cyber Security Services business unit.

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Under CEO Satya Nadella's leadership, Microsoft continues to focus on the enterprise productivity market with its flagship service, Office 365. By emphasizing the need for a modern workforce to collaborate across geographies, departments, disciplines, and even organizations, Microsoft has given Office 365 users a plethora of tools and applications that enable cooperation and collaboration like never before.

But Microsoft is not done developing its collaboration tools just yet. In April 2017, the company announced it was acquiring Intentional Software for an undisclosed amount. Intentional Software is led by former Microsoft executive and Office product development guru Charles Simonyi, who once led the team that created Microsoft products like Word and Excel.

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Apple has finalized a deal to acquire Workflow today — a tool that lets you hook together apps and functions within apps in strings of commands to automate tasks. We’ve been tracking this one for a while but were able to confirm just now that the ink on the deal is drying as we speak.

I haven’t been able to get financial details for the deal, but if I come up with them I’ll update.

The app was made by a small team that includes Ari Weinstein, a former iPhone jailbreaker. I’ve been following his efforts since the iPod Linux days and covered his very useful DeskConnect app a few years back.

Workflow has been around for a couple of years and we’ve covered it and its updates. It shares some similarity with the service IFTTT, in that it allows people to group together a bunch of actions that can allow them to perform complicated tasks with one tap. It had built up a sizeable number of users and downloads over the past few years.

Workflow the app is being acquired, along with the team of Weinstein, Conrad Kramer and Nick Frey. In a somewhat uncommon move for Apple, the app will continue to be made available on the App Store and will be made free later today.   

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Adding weight to the rumors circulating about a future iPhone boasting facial recognition, reports claim that Apple has purchased RealFace -- a machine learning company specializing in the technology.

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Microsoft today announced that it has acquired Simplygon, a company that develops 3D-optimization solutions for game developers and other industries that need to visualize 3D data.

Simplygon’s SDK is used by many major game development studios and the company recently expanded into the AR/VR market, too. Given Microsoft’s push into AR with its Hololens project and VR with Windows Holographic, it’s clear where Simplygon’s technology fits into Microsoft’s own roadmap.

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When racing cars have only hundredths of seconds between them, in a race where the time to change a tire means the difference between winning and losing (and..

Google hat den API-Spezialisten Apigee gekauft. Die Lösungen des Softwareherstellers sollen in Googles Cloud-Plattform integriert werden.

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Eine Art Twitch mit mehr interaktiven Elementen - das ist der Streamingdienst Beam. Jetzt will Microsoft die Firma kaufen, um sie in seine Xbox-Sparte einzugliedern.
Der Typ im Let's Play hat keine Ahnung, welche Waffen er ins große Gefecht mitnehmen soll? Wenn er seinen Stream mit Beam überträgt, kann ihm unter Umständen geholfen werden: Dann kann die Community eine erfolgversprechende Kombination zusammenstellen. Jetzt hat Microsoft in seinem Blog bekanntgegeben, die kleine Firma für einen nicht genannten Kaufpreis zu übernehmen. Beam soll in die Xbox-Sparte integriert werden, so dass früher oder später mit entsprechenden Videoangeboten auf Xbox Live zu rechnen ist.

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Apple has bought Turi, a Seattle-based machine learning startup.

The purchase price was "around" $200 million, Geekwire reports, citing a source close to the deal. 

Turi was founded by a University of Washington professor, and it specialized in providing tools and frameworks for other developers to incorporate machine learning and artificial intelligence into their apps. 

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