Apple recently acquired PowerbyProxi, a New Zealand company that designs wireless power solutions, for an undisclosed sum. It confirmed plans to keep the business in New Zealand.
Apple snaps up New Zealand wireless charging company PowerbyProxi
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Apple’s chief attorney Bruce Sewell retiring, to be replaced with Honeywell’s Katherine Adams
Bruce Sewell is retiring at the end of the year after eight years in the role of Apple's chief attorney, the company announced Friday.
Apple’s latest computer vision acquisition: small French startup Regaind
It was recently reported that Apple earlier this year had acquired a computer vision startup called Regaind, located in Paris. The company specializes in AI-driven photo and facial analysis, which could tie nicely into Apple's ARKit and face tracking features built into iOS 11.
Apple’s software chief Craig Federighi takes over Siri development from Eddy Cue
Apple has officially moved Siri development leadership from Eddy Cue, its Senior Vice President of Internet Software and Services, to Craig Federighi, who is the company's Senior Vice President of Software Engineering.
Tim Cook emails Apple employees about Hurricane Harvey
Apple CEO Tim Cook on Wednesday afternoon emailed employees about Hurricane Harvey that is causing unprecedented and catastrophic flooding in southeastern Texas, revealing that users had so far raised more than $3 million in aid through iTunes, while the company has pledged $2 million.
Apple’s Secure Enclave team is hiring
Apple is currently advertising job openings for its Secure Enclave team, seeking several software engineers and managers through its Jobs website in the United States.
Former WGN America president Matt Cherniss joins Apple’s global video team
As news broke that Apple is poised to become a major player in Hollywood by spending a cool $1 billion on original TV shows and movies in the next year, Variety reports that Matt Cherniss, who was a president and general manager of WGN America and Tribune Studios, has joined the Cupertino technology giant's growing worldwide video team.
Former Swift creator Chris Lattner joins Google’s AI team
Chris Lattner, a former star Apple engineer who built early versions of Apple's Swift programming language in 2010 before a team was formed to further the project, has joined Google's artificial intelligence (AI) team, according to his announcement on Twitter on Monday.
Facebook hiring Apple veterans to work on Siri-style voice assistant
Facebook is poaching Apple veterans and tasking them with building a “Siri-style voice assistant” that should power the company's rumored wireless speaker and another upcoming device dedicated to video chatting, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.
Apple creates new Vice President of People role held by Deirdre O’Brien
Apple today announced that it is creating a new role, Vice President of People, to be held by its Vice President of Worldwide Sales and Operations, Deirdre O’Brien, starting this fall.
Apple to report June quarter earnings on August 1
According to an update on the Investor Relations website, Apple is scheduled to report its fiscal 2017 third quarter earnings on August 1. The Cupertino technology giant has scheduled a conference call with Wall Street analysts and investors to discuss the quarterly results for Tuesday, August 1, at 2pm Pacific Time / 5pm Easter Time.
A press release announcing the earnings typically goes out 30 minutes ahead of the earnings call. You'll be able to listen to the conference call live via Apple's website. Apple states that live audio streaming uses its HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) technology.
HLS requires an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with Safari on iOS 7.0 or later, a Mac with Safari 6.0.5 or later on OS X 10.8.5 or later or a PC with Microsoft Edge on Windows 10.
We'll be covering the earnings and any interesting tidbits from the conference call.
Apple acquires German eye-tracking firm SensoMotoric Instruments
Apple may have quietly acquired SensoMotoric Instruments, a German company which can track people's eye movements. MacRumors was first to report yesterday that SensoMotoric has been acquired for an undisclosed sum by Apple's shell company, called Vineyard Capital.
The company holds multiple patents relating to eye tracking and virtual reality.
“Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans,” an Apple spokesperson said in a boilerplate statement issued to Axios.
Gene Levoff, Apple's Vice President of Corporate Law representing Delaware's Vineyard Capital Corporation, granted power of attorney to a German law firm to represent the shell company, which in turn acquired SensoMotoric Instruments on June 16. Levoff even notarized the document in Cupertino, California, where Apple is headquartered.
Tellingly, SensoMotoric recently removed over a dozen pages from its official website. It no longer has a jobs portal, news blog, schedule of events and workshops, contact information, list of distributors and resellers or mailing list signup form.
Their managing director Eberhard Schmidt was replaced by Dr. Ali Sahin, one of the German attorneys representing Vineyard Capital Corporation. Christian Villwock, who was the company's Director of OEM Solutions Business, was removed from the website, too.
Here's an example of SensoMotoric's eye-tracking technology in Samsung Gear.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDvgP2tnMHQ
Another video embedded further below shows off SensoMotoric's eye-tracking glasses with Natural Gaze Head Gear used by young athletes playing tennis to accurately capture their natural gaze, which helps them evaluate and improve their visual performance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEZP_corY3Q
Proprietary eyeglass hardware that the video's athletes are wearing can capture a person's natural gaze behavior at a rate of 120 scans per second.
On the hardware side, Apple could use SensoMotoric technology in its rumored augmented reality glasses product. Eye-tracking technology can significantly reduce motion sickness for users of virtual reality headsets such as Facebook's Oculus Rift.
One specific aspect of SensoMotoric's technology, called foveated rendering, allows a virtual reality headset to save power by only showing you in high resolution what you're actually looking at, with anything in your peripheral vision being rendered in less high-resolution.
This reduces the amount of processing power needed to render a virtual world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-w7r0IGRlTY
On the software side, Apple could improve iPhone 8's rumored 3D facial recognition security feature through eye tracking and even allow apps and games to track the user's eye movement so that they could, for instance, aim in a game with their gaze.
Founded in 1991, SensoMotoric Instruments is headquartered in Teltow, Germany, with a satellite office in Boston, Massachusetts. The company employs about 60 engineers.
“I do think that a significant portion of the population of developed countries, and eventually all countries, will have AR experiences every day, almost like eating three meals a day,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said last year.