Social media giants Twitter have set about enhancing their live and video services by purchasing London based AI start-up company Magic Pony Technology for an estimated $150 million (equivalent to £102 million).
Magic Pony Technology is a company that has developed novel machine learning techniques for visual processing, which was founded just two years ago and uses machine learning to build improved systems for visual processing. Creating algorithms that can understand pictures is a speciality of Magic Pony, which will be very beneficial for Twitter as it continues its move into live streaming and moves away from its traditional chronological timeline.
This highlights Twitters ability to change and adapt to grow in an industry that requires fresh innovative ideas to succeed, and joining forces with Magic Pony will now improve the visual experiences that are delivered across their apps, according to the company. This is the third time Twitter have bought into a machine learning start-up, following the acquisitions of Madbits in 2014 which was followed by Whetlab in 2015.
Jack Dorsey, who is the chief executive of Twitter, has said, “Magic Pony’s technology would be used to enhance live and video offerings and opens up a whole lot of exciting creative possibilities for Twitter. The team included 11 PHDs with expertise across computer vision, machine learning, high performance computing and computational neuroscience.”
The news will see Magic Pony’s chief executive Rob Bishop move to San Francisco as part of the deal, and he has said, “The start up will help improve the viewing experience on Twitter. Joining forces with Twitter gives us the opportunity to bring the benefits of that research to hundreds of millions of people around the world.”
This appears to be a major investment for Twitter, with Magic Pony’s speed and efficiency the key to what has been setting the technology company apart from its competitors over the last couple of years, with its targets focusing desktop, mobile and web as well as live and video being a key part of its systems.
So this looks like it could only be a very successful move by Twitter teaming up with Magic Pony, with proven success in the past with a similar move by Google in 2014 when they joined forces with London based company DeepMind, which went on to be a great move for the company. So it looks like the future is even brighter for Twitter.
