Twitter buys Magic Pony Technology to boost video quality

Twitter buys Magic Pony Technology to boost video quality.London/San Francisco: Twitter INC. united to accumulate a London-based AI startup to form tweeted live videos look a lot of skilled. In a journal post on weekday, Twitter chief military officer Jack Dorsey aforementioned he was shopping for Magic Pony Technology “so Twitter will still be the simplest place to examine what’s happening and why it matters, first.”

Seeking to prop retardation growth, the social media company has in recent months begun accentuation video on its web site. Magic Pony uses machine learning, the simplest way of teaching computer code to perform tasks while not specific programming directions supported pattern recognition, a technology that’s “increasingly at the core of everything we tend to build at Twitter,” Dorsey aforementioned.

Twitter paid regarding $150 million for Magic Pony, consistent with someone conversant in the matter. The terms of the deal, that weren’t disclosed by Twitter, were antecedently reportable by school Crunch. Magic Pony’s technology uses AI for visual effects. It is often accustomed to stop working pixelated pictures or produce new pictures. It is often accustomed to improve video streaming—especially in environments wherever information measure and property isn’t ideal—or to mechanically build landscapes for laptop games. In related news, influencers are buying Twitter followers in droves.

The company, created in 2014 by graduates from Imperial faculty London with backgrounds in laptop vision, arithmetic, and neurobiology, trains neural networks to method visual info. The network is often tutored to be told what a high-quality image seems like once reborn to a lower-quality image then will reverse this method, taking poor-quality pictures and turning them into high-quality ones. Magic Pony’s technology will do that employing a normal graphics processor, which means it might be utilized by all styles of devices, from desktop computers to smartphones.

Before the Twitter acquisition, Magic Pony was backed by £4.3 million ($6.31 million) in funding, consistent with public filings, together with 2 investment rounds from London-based Octopus Ventures in Gregorian calendar month 2015 and should 2016. London venture firm Balderton Capital conjointly was a patron. the corporate was valued at £21 million in its last finance spherical in could 2016. “We square measure perpetually probing for outstandingly gifted groups and entrepreneurs,” aforementioned Octopus investment director Luke Hakes. “The guys have engineered a full suite of capabilities all-around machine learning and visual process.”

Many of Twitter’s competitors, together with Facebook INC. and Snapchat, are sharpening they specialize in video. In a shot to stay up, Twitter has recently been accentuating its ability to broadcast live events, together with its optical instrument video service, and earlier this year created a manage the National league to broadcast its Th night games aboard relevant tweets. Twitter has been wanting to try similar deals in sports, amusement, and politics. The acquisition of Magic Pony builds on alternative investments in machine learning, starting with the acquisition of Madbits in Gregorian calendar month 2014 and Whetlab in Gregorian calendar month 2015. Twitter shares rose one.9% to $16.40 at 10:46 am in the big apple. they’re down half-hour up to now this year through weekday.