Twitter Pays $150 Million For Magic Pony Technology (techcrunch.com) 47
An anonymous reader writes: Following news that Twitter would invest around $70 million in music streaming service SoundCloud, the company is reportedly acquiring Magic Pony Technology, a company out of London that has developed technologies of using neural networks and machine learning to provide expanded data for images. For example, they can be used to enhance a picture or video taken on a mobile phone or to help develop graphics for virtual reality or augmented reality applications. "Machine learning is increasingly at the core of everything we build at Twitter," said Jack Dorsey, Twitter CEO and co-founder, in a statement. "Magic Pony's machine learning technology will hep us build strength into our deep learning teams with world-class talent, so Twitter can continue to be the best place to see what's happening and why it matters, first. We value deep learning to help make our world better, and we will keep doing our part to share our work and learnings with the community." "[Magic Pony Technology] made a few further waves this year, as it further revealed the way that its technology worked to help enhance visuals with information that may not be in the picture itself, but essentially be created from composites of similar pictures, much like how the human eye works," writes TechCrunch. The company has remained under the radar for the most part. They have filed a number of patents -- around 20, which now belong to Twitter.
Disaster (Score:5, Funny)
That's terrible.
Hopefully they can get by with a bit of Birmingham or Manchester until they can get some delivered.
Re: (Score:2)
Do you not find it cramped inside your tiny little brain with its tiny little horizons?
Missed opportunity (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Not in a particularly useful manner, as it makes up the details in the gaps... but that said, it really gets some amazing results. I wish they had more examples. Blows away all of the non-neural-net-based deblurring and texture expansion techniques I've ever seen.
Anyone else read this as ... (Score:1)
... "Twitter Pays $150 Million For My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic Technology?"
Re: (Score:2)
No, I read it without understanding that Magic Pony Technology was the name of a company. And for a moment got excited that someone actually developed a technology to get magic ponies.
That would have been a so much better story!
I want magic ponies!
Re: Anyone else read this as ... (Score:2)
That was my first thought. My second thought was "the Bronies have grown too powerful. We must activate the Halo."
OMG! (Score:2)
"a company out of London" (Score:2)
Is that London in Kentucky or Ontario?
Re: (Score:2)
You are confused, but that is because the contributor has mangled English. I think the phrase that the literate would use is "a company in London".
Unless the OP is making a point about where the company used to be in the past?
So if your girlfriend... (Score:2)
does sexting in bad lighting conditions, will this NN have been trained on suitable material to "enhance" the image and will she look like a porn star?
(There is a serious point about machine learning hidden in than example.)
Re: (Score:2)
140 characters (Score:5, Funny)
Machine learning is increasingly at the center (Score:1)
At last! (Score:1)
I want a pony.
So in other words (Score:2)
Twitter just gained the magic of friendship? It needed it.
My Little Pony (Score:1)
Did anyone else read that as a little girls doll company?
In other words ... (Score:2)
"Magic Pony's machine learning technology will hep us build strength into our deep learning teams with world-class talent, so Twitter can continue to be the best place to see what's happening and why it matters, first.
Buzzword, buzzword, buzzword ... so we can tag even more information from your photos.
Next up: profiling people by their usage of vowels in their texts.
Re: (Score:2)
Well Twitter just blew as much money as it lost last year. And they also blew through 1/3 of it's remaining liquid capital to do this. I expect late this year or the year after that they'll be up for sale. So I'm not surprised they're buying up buzzword companies in an attempt to make themselves look more attractive.
Magic Pony is cool tech (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Licensing. App and web usage, and thus ad revenue. The usual.
A rather... um... interesting thought just occured to me. They talk about the potential use of this being paired with cameras, to fill in the detail that the camera couldn't capture. And I totally agree. But think of where that'll go. At first it'd just be implemented in software. But if it really works out well, they'll want to implement it in hardware. Meaning... hardware neural nets in all of our phones.
Behind the times. Feds spent billions on unicorn f (Score:2)
Twitter is so behind the times, only investing millions in Magic Ponies. For six years already the federal government has been investing billions giving it to people selling unicorn farts.
Magic Pony Technology (Score:2)
Just wanted to say (Score:1)
Comment (Score:1)
These magic ponies better poop rainbows and skittles!