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Apple buys Israeli startup Q.ai

techcrunch.com

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Re: Apple buys Israeli startup Q.ai

#13

Post by darth_avocado »

alighter wrote: post #7
bnchrch wrote: post #5

Wake me up when they let one of these acqui-hires update Siri to be on par with a voice assistant I could make in an afternoon with off the shelf tools.

This. And next word prediction / autocorrect that doesn’t look like it’s from the previous century.

Apple autocorrect has gotten actually worse over the last decade. Before it used to be duck instead of a similar sounding word and it took one action to correct it. Now it’s just fuschia and it takes 5 mins to correct the correction to the autocorrect.

Re: Apple buys Israeli startup Q.ai

#16

Post by tiffanyh »

robinsoncrusue wrote: post #12

[flagged]

The full quote:

> enable devices to interpret whispered speech and enhance audio in noisy environments.

I personally see a lot of people using Siri on speakerphone in public places and am amazed due to the background noise … that Siri can even capture half of what’s said.

Re: Apple buys Israeli startup Q.ai

#17

Post by tchalla »

> Notably, this is the second time CEO Aviad Maizels has sold a company to Apple. In 2013, he sold PrimeSense, a 3D-sensing company that played a key role in Apple’s transition from fingerprint sensors to facial recognition on iPhones. Q.ai launched in 2022 and is backed by Kleiner Perkins, Gradient Ventures, and others. Its founding team, including Maizels and co-founders Yonatan Wexler and Avi Barliya, will join Apple as part of the acquisition.

Twice, well done!

Re: Apple buys Israeli startup Q.ai

#19

Post by Sir_Twist »

“Q.ai is a startup developing a technology to analyze facial expressions and other ways for communication.”

This is an interesting acquisition given their rumored Echo Show / Nest Hub competitor (1). Maybe this is part of their (albeit flawed and delayed) attempt to revitalize the Siri branding under their Apple Intelligence marketing. When you have to say the exact right words to Siri, or else she will add “Meeting at 10” as an all day calendar event, people get frustrated, and that non-technical illusion of the “digital assistant” is lost. If this is the model of understanding Apple have of their customers’ perception of Siri, then maybe their thinking is that giving Siri more non-verbal personable capability could be a differentiating factor in the smart hub market, along with the LLM rebuild. I could also see this tying into some sort of strategy for the Vision Pro.

Now, whether this hypothetical differentiating factor is worth $2 billion, I’m not so sure on, but I guess time will tell.

https://www.macrumors.com/2025/11/05/apple-smart-home-hub-20...

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