We are already accustomed to the fact that the main technological companies announce some things with hype and cymbal, while others do not usually report publicly, until someone comes to notice the changes.
A good example of this is now brought to us by TechCrunch, which reports on the recent acquisition of Apple. This is WaveOne, a company founded in 2016 and specialized in the development of Artificial Intelligence algorithms for video compression instead of traditional codecs, which it tried to make obsolete.
An operation that has hardly transcended public opinion
And we say that he tried to leave because this company closed its official website last January in this operation, of which the economic terms are still unknown, which has allowed former WaveOne workers to currently carry out their jobs in the various machine learning groups within Apple.
Bob Stankosh, who was WaveOne’s head of sales and business development, used his LinkedIn profile to show that the sale has been carried out, noting that:
After almost two years at WaveOne, last week we finalized the sale of the company to Apple. We started our journey at WaveOne realizing that machine learning and deep learning video technology could change the world. Apple saw this potential and jumped at the opportunity to add it to its technology portfolio.
AI is expected to make traditional video codecs obsolete
You have to look back, in those times where viewing videos was not as easy as it is today. And all because you had to have the right video codecs installed on your system.
When online video platforms arrived, and even more so when it was possible to view them directly from the web browser, videos became more accessible, although codecs were also used, although users stopped having to worry about them. .
WaveOne tried to bring an approach where they left obsolete video codecs in favor of a “content-aware” video compression and decompression Artificial Intelligence algorithm that would take advantage of the AI ​​processing capabilities present in mobile processors in the so that, through the detection of objects and scenes by the algorithm, the main elements are prioritized to the detriment of the rest within the scenes in order to save bandwidth.
The company went on to point out that its compression technology was more resilient to abrupt interruptions, so that instead of freezing the image, it would be able to continue displaying content, albeit with a lower level of detail.
And most interestingly, it allows it to work on any hardware and achieving greater reductions in file size and better image quality in more complex scenes.
It should not be forgotten that Apple already has its own efficient video codec called ProRes, used in professional environments, which is already capable of achieving large size reductions without loss of quality, so having Artificial Intelligence technology That it offers greater benefits is a plus that it can offer to users of applications such as Final Cut Pro, especially for complex jobs, although its Apple TV + service could also benefit in a similar way to what DeepMind has been doing for a year. in Youtube.
It only remains how the company will specify the use of video compression and decompression technology by AI, being possible (we assume) that we can see something at the next conference for developers.
More information: TechCrunch
