APRIL 2020 MACWORLD 15As for when it might implement this
feature, well, Apple already uses IR
cameras in its True Depth camera system
present on the iPhones X, XR, XS, and 11
series—they read dots generated by an
infrared emitter for use in tech like Face ID
and the Animoji/Memoji system. It would
hardly be a stretch for the company to
integrate an IR camera into main cameras
on the back of the phone—though that
camera bump is already getting pretty
overloaded. Either way, I wouldn’t expect
to see a benefit from this recent
acquisition for another year at least.
LEARNING MACHINES
Well, if nothing else, Xnor.ai certainly wins
the award for “most difficult to pronounce”
Apple acquisition. News broke that Apple
had spent $200 million on the
AI-focused company, which
has developed machine
learning and image recognition
algorithms that are designed
to work locally on devices,
rather than being offloaded to
a remote server.
One of Xnor.ai’s previous
clients, Wyze Labs, used the AI
technology to detect people in
security camera videos. Though
that deal has now ended (likely
pursuant to the Apple
acquisition), Apple could
certainly use the tech for similar uses—
though I expect the company’s ambitions
are probably broader. There are a ton of
applications: everything from helping
detection of people and objects in Photos
to better Siri processing to making it easier
for third-party developers to integrate AI
and machine learning into their own
applications.
AI is obviously a big area of interest for
Apple—so big, in fact, that its AI/machine
learning chief, John Giannandrea, is one of
the company’s executive team. And given
that Apple’s made a big deal about
on-device processing of data, so that your
personal data is under your control, Xnor.ai
certainly seems like a very solid fit, with a
lot of potential upside for both Apple and
its users. ■It’s likely that the Animoji/Memoji technology originates
from technology developed by Faceshift, a company that
Apple acquired in 2015.