Apple buys Tuplejump

Apple Inc. has acquired Indian machine learning start-up Tuplejump Software Pvt. Ltd as it seeks to expand its expertise in Artificial Intelligence. The iPhone maker bought the Hyderabad, India based start-up in June. Tuplejump software specializes in processing and analyzing big sets of data quickly.

Artificial Intelligence has become a key investment field for tech giants as Google, Facebook Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. compete with Apple to develop virtual assistants. The Tuplejump deal is Apple’s third acquisition in the industry this year, after the iPhone maker bought Seattle based Turi Inc. for $200 Million and purchased Emotient, a company that uses AI to recognize and act upon facial expressions, for an undisclosed amount.

Tuplejump has about a dozen employees, many of whom were already based on the west coast of US. Apple allowed third parties to use its Siri Virtual assistant in their own apps for the first time this year, a move that was seen by some Artificial Intelligence experts as a key step in improving the product by leaning on the Cupertino, California based company’s vast community of developers.

Google’s rival product has gained plaudits for its ability to understand the intent for a request, while Amazon’s Alexa has an edge in understanding different accents, dialects and languages. Meanwhile, Facebook is seeking to build intelligent chatbots into its social network.

Apple to buy Turi

Apple Inc. acquired Artificial Intelligence startup Turi Inc. for about $200 Million in the latest deal by the iPhone maker to accumulate advanced computing capabilities for its products and services.

Turi helps developers create and manage software and services that use a form of Artificial Intelligence (AI) called machine learning. It also has systems that let companies to build recommendation engines, detect fraud, analyze customer usage patterns, and better target potential users. Apple could use this to more rapidly integrate the technology with future products.

Formerly known as Dato, Turi raised more than $25 Million from venture capital investors including New Enterprise Associates and Madrona Venture Group, according to CrunchBase. Apple has purchased multiple firms over the past couple of years that specializes in Artificial Intelligence. The company has also begun to integrate these technologies into products such as its iPhone software and Siri.

In January, Apple acquired Emotient, a startup that uses AI to recognize and act upon facial expressions. Last year, Apple acquired a pair of voice centric AI startups, VocalIQ and Perceptio, to bolster Siri. VocalIQ specialized in using machine learning to allow voice assistants to engage in more realistic conversation. Perceptio focused on helping AI systems run on devices while sharing limited amounts of personal user data.

Apple Buys Emotient

Apple has bought a San Diego startup working on Artificial Intelligence technology that analyzes facial expressions to detect emotions. Facial Recognition is an area in which several major tech companies have interest, though it’s not without controversy.

Facebook decided against releasing its Moments photo app in Europe because of fears over privacy regulations and Google Photos only offers its facial recognition feature in the US. Apple has also made some other acquisitions. Faceshift, a motion capture startup focused on facial analysis, and Perceptio a company with deep learning image recognition technology designed for mobile processors.

Improving Image recognition is a hot topic in Silicon Valley where Apple rivals Facebook Inc., Alphabet Inc. Google and others are investing heavily in Artificial Intelligence techniques. Apple has expressed interest in the field. In a 2014 patent application, it described a software system that would analyze and identify people moods based on a variety of clues including facial expression.

In October, Apple confirmed that it had acquired another artificial Intelligence startup VocalIQ Ltd. that aims to improve a computer ability to understand natural speech. In May, Emotient announced it had been granted a patent for a method of collecting and labeling as many as 100,000 facial images a day so computers can better recognize different expressions.