Apple has recently acquired a startup company called WaveOne, which was based in Mountain View and specialised in developing AI algorithms for compressing video.
The acquisition was reported by TechCrunch, and while Apple has yet to confirm it, WaveOne executive Bob Stankosh revealed the news in a LinkedIn post.
WaveOne was dedicated to building the next generation of compression for digital media and was leveraging machine learning and deep learning advancements to create custom-tailored, context-dependent solutions.
One of its key innovations was content-aware video compression and decompression, which could run on AI accelerators built into many phones.
Video compression is a common problem that affects anyone who has ever watched a video on the internet. The quality of the video can be affected by a variety of factors, such as low bandwidth and larger amounts of data being sent. This can result in buffering or pausing in a video stream, causing a poor viewing experience.
To solve this problem, video codecs are used to compress video frames as much as possible. However, this can cause a degradation in quality and glitches in the video, especially when there is a lot of movement on the screen.
WaveOne is changing the way compression works on video streams. By using content awareness, they wanted to prioritise faces or action for clarity while allowing other parts of the screen to be blurry when compression needed to be increased.
This would save bandwidth and reduce frustration, as viewers would be able to clearly see the important parts of the video.
According to TechCrunch, WaveOne claimed that its approach to video compression could reduce the size of video files by up to 50%.
The company also stated that its technology is hardware-agnostic, which means it could run without the need for new chips to process machine learning technology in data centers or consumer devices.
Even small improvements in bandwidth can significantly improve the viewer experience, as bandwidth is never perfect, and nobody wants their viewing experience to be degraded or interrupted.
On the enterprise side, better bandwidth efficiency can lead to cost savings over time for delivering the same content.
With the acquisition of WaveOne, Apple could deliver more vivid and clear content on its services for cheaper, leading to greater customer satisfaction.
WaveOne had between two and 10 employees at the time of the acquisition and had raised $9 million in funding, according to the company’s Crunchbase profile page.
Apple could incorporate this technology into its products, including iCloud and Photos storage management, streaming video, and more.
Following the acquisition, some of WaveOne’s employees have joined Apple’s machine learning teams.
