Apple buys a lot of companies throughout the course of a year, with only a couple of them rising to the level of intriguing news. Last year’s purchase of Intel’s smartphone modem business certainly qualifies, as does the 2018 acquisition of Shazam, but for the most part, Apple scopes out companies that we’ve never heard of for reasons we’ll never know.
Its most recent acquisition might be different. The company, Xnor.ai, might not be one you’ve ever heard of, but they’re hardly unknown. Since last summer, the Seattle-based startup’s tech has been the brains behind the popular Wyze cam’s marquee feature: people detection. Simply put, it allowed the $20 camera to distinguish between faces, pets, and dust, and vastly improved its abilities, putting it a somewhat level playing field with the far-more-expensive Ring and Nest cams of the world.
