Live data from Hacker News

Apple buys Israeli startup Q.ai

techcrunch.com

21–30 of 58 posts

Re: Apple buys Israeli startup Q.ai

#21
post #8

Could Q.ai be commercializing the AlterEgo tech coming out of MIT Lab? i.e. "detects faint neuromuscular signals in the face and throat when a person internally verbalizes words" Yep, looks like that is it. Recent patent from one of the founders: https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&h...

Yeah...

Pardon the AI crap, but:

> ...in most people, when they "talk to themselves" in their mind (inner speech or internal monologue), there is typically subtle, miniature activation of the voice-related muscles — especially in the larynx (vocal cords/folds), tongue, lips, and sometimes jaw or chin area. These movements are usually extremely small — often called subvocal or sub-articulatory activity — and almost nobody can feel or see them without sensitive equipment. They do not produce any audible sound (no air is pushed through to vibrate the vocal folds enough for sound). Key evidence comes from decades of research using electromyography (EMG), which records tiny electrical signals from muscles: EMG studies consistently show increased activity in laryngeal (voice box) muscles, tongue, and lip/chin areas during inner speech, silent reading, mental arithmetic, thinking in words, or other verbal thinking tasks

So, how long until my Airpods can read my mind?

Re: Apple buys Israeli startup Q.ai

#22
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I agree with this sentiment. It was so annoying that I turned auto correct off. I found that writing on iPhone has got worse as well, or at least it's my own observation. On the other hand, voice dictation has improved quite a bit that I can just dictate into my phone when needed. For more serious work I use a work device not a consumption one.

Re: Apple buys Israeli startup Q.ai

#23
post #17

> 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 Ap…

What kind of tech does qAi bring to the table?

Re: Apple buys Israeli startup Q.ai

#24
post #8

Could Q.ai be commercializing the AlterEgo tech coming out of MIT Lab? i.e. "detects faint neuromuscular signals in the face and throat when a person internally verbalizes words" Yep, looks like that is it. Recent patent from one of the founders: https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&h...

Yeah... Pardon the AI crap, but: > ...in most people, when they "talk to themselves" in their mind (inner speech or internal monologue), there is typically subtle, miniature activation of the voice-related muscles — especially in the larynx (vocal cords/folds), tongue, lips, and sometimes jaw or chin area. These movements are usually extremely small — often called subvocal or sub-articulatory activity — and almost no…

[deleted]

Re: Apple buys Israeli startup Q.ai

#26
post #9
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

On both my nokia and my blackberry it was far far better than on my iphone. That wasn't quite 199X but pretty close. I wish the iphone had word prediction and autocorrect that was from the previous centruy

BlackBerry's keyboards & autocorrect were top notch. Nothing has matched it yet when using a pure virtual touch screen keyboard.

Crazy he had pretty much perfected the tech of typing out text on a smartphone and then decided to throw it all away by moving to all-screen devices instead. A virtual keyboard with no tactile feel will never compare until we can have screens that can recreate the tactile bumps of a physical keyboard.

Re: Apple buys Israeli startup Q.ai

#29
post #25

Why am I having a feeling that one of their reasons was so they can trademark "iQ", to match the iSomething "franchise", so to speak?

Apple dropped the "i" naming scheme many years ago.

iCloud, iPad, iPhone, iMac, iMessage, iOS/iPadOS, iMovie?

Granted, they are slowly but surely killing it, but it’s still going quite strong.

Re: Apple buys Israeli startup Q.ai

#30
post #17

> 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 Ap…

What kind of tech does qAi bring to the table?

" As first reported by Reuters, Apple has acquired Q.ai, an Israeli startup specializing in imaging and machine learning, particularly technologies that enable devices to interpret whispered speech and enhance audio in noisy environments."
Post reply on HN