Microsoft is buying out software keyboard maker SwiftKey, according to a report from The Financial Times. The deal is said to be worth $250 million, and the two companies are expected to officially announce the acquisition later this week.
While Microsoft has shown interest in the mobile keyboard space, the report claims that the purchase is all about AI. SwiftKey uses artificial intelligence to predict the next word a user is going to type based on an analysis of their writing style.
Zagg has acquired popular battery case maker Mophie, the two companies announced on Tuesday. The Utah-based accessory giant has agreed to pay $100 million for Mophie, plus any EBITDA adjustments over that amount for the next year, in cash and debt.
In a press release sent out this afternoon, Zagg said that the transaction will leverage the unique strength of two "industry leaders" in the mobile accessories sector to create a business with greater product diversification and improved operational capabilities.
Apple has acquired education-technology startup LearnSprout, reports Bloomberg. The outlet has received confirmation of the buyout with the boilerplate statement, "Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans."
Terms of the deal are not known at this time, but we do know that the San Francisco-based LearnSprout has raised more than $4 million from investors. The company specializes in education tracking and analytical software, which it has rolled out to more than 2,500 US schools.
The Wall Street Journal has it on good authority that Foxconn, the world's biggest contract fabricator that assembles products for Apple and other companies, is buying Sharp, an iPhone display supplier.
Sharp has been in financial crisis for several years and banks have bailed it out twice in three years.
Foxconn has reportedly offered approximately ¥625 billion, or about $5.3 billion, to acquire Sharp. Back in 2013, Foxconn was supposed to buy a large stake in Sharp, but the deal quickly collapsed over share price dispute.
Apple has reportedly purchased Emotient, Inc., a privately held San Diego-based artificial intelligence startup, according to Dow Jones. No price was given for the deal. Emotient, according to its website, is the leader in emotion detection and sentiment analysis.
The company's products are used for gauging emotional response by way of measuring facial expressions, allowing it to basically read people’s emotions from live video.
Fly Labs, the maker of popular photo and video editing apps for iOS, announced on Friday that it's been acquired by Google. The company's software library includes apps like Clips, Tempo, Crop, and Fly, which made Apple's 'Best of the App Store' list in 2014.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but we do know that the folks at Fly Labs will be joining the Google Photos team and plan on pulling their apps from the App Store in 3 months. As a peace offering, they have made all of their apps free with no IAPs until then.
Following news last week that Apple acquired UK-based voice technology startup VocalIQ, Bloomberg reports that the company has also recently picked up AI startup Perceptio. A spokesman for Apple has confirmed the buyout with the usual boilerplate statement of “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans.”
Apple has acquired UK-based voice technology startup VocalIQ, according to a report from the Financial Times. A spokesman for the Cupertino company has confirmed the buyout with the usual boilerplate statement of "Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans."
Apple has acquired Mapsense, a San Francisco-based startup that specializes in tools for analyzing and visualizing location data, Recode reports. A spokesperson confirmed the buyout, saying "Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans."
The deal is said to be worth anywhere between $25 million and $30 million, and it includes Mapsense's 12-person team and technology. That tech includes a cloud-based tool that allows users to manipulate graphical models of maps that hold huge sums of data, and a recently launched platform for developers.
Apple may have bought Swiss real-time motion capture firm Faceshift in recent weeks, reports MacRumors. The site points to a company registry filing that shows all three of their original corporate directors stepped down in mid-August, and were replaced by a mergers and acquisitions attorney from Baker & McKenzie—a firm Apple frequently uses.
Faceshift has some interesting technology that can quickly and accurately capture facial expressions using 3D sensors. They've worked with both game and animation studios, and even built their own software. More recently, the company has been working on a Skype plugin that allows users to transform into avatar characters during real-time video chats.
Runtastic has been acquired by sportswear giant Adidas, the company's CEO and co-founder Florian Gschwandtner announced in a blog post on Wednesday. The deal is said to be worth somewhere in the neighborhood of 220 million euros (or $239 million).
For those unfamiliar with Runtastic, it develops and maintains a number of fitness apps for iOS, Android, Windows Phone and BlackBerry. It has also dabbled in hardware with a GPS watch, a heart rate monitor, and the recently-released Orbit fitness tracker.
Nokia, once the dominant force in the mobile industry, has sold off its prized HERE maps division to a German carmaker consortium comprised of Audi, BMW and Daimler, technology blog Re/code reported this morning.
The $3.07 billion transaction (2.8 billion euros) is pending regulatory approval and should be completed in the first quarter of 2016. The deal is meant to “secure the long-term availability” of HERE maps as an open platform, as per a media release.
News of the deal arrives following months of speculation that a bunch of Silicon Valley technology giants were interested in a takeover bid, including ride sharing service Uber, as well as Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Baidu and others.