Apple Inc. seems to recognize the fact that studying facial expressions is a very big topic of interest for many technology companies. Which is why the company recently acquired the San Diego-based tech company Emotient, a startup that employs artificial intelligence technology to read emotion from facial cues, reports the Wall Street Journal. What Apple intends to do with the startup company, specifically, is not yet known; however, it is safe to assume that whatever the end result is, it will be something of a game changer.
Emotient's AI technology, up to this point, has primarily been used by doctors, advertisers, and retailers. The startup company was in the process of raising additional funds, but those endeavors proved to be unsuccessful. Emotient was able to raise a total of $8 million from various investors, like Seth Neiman and Intel Capital.
It looks like funding won't be much of a problem now that they have been acquired by Apple -- a purchase that should not be all that surprising. In an email, the company was only willing to be vague about the purchase.
"Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans."
AI and the possibilities of what can be done with it, specifically the analysis of human faces, has been an increasingly popular topic of conversation within the last couple of years in the Silicon Valley. Industry heavyweights like Google and Facebook have been investing in AI and image recognition, and Facebook has been experimenting with their facial recognition capabilities.
