Apple acquires companies from time to time, as per their boilerplate statement they issue whenever such acquisitions come to light. However it seems that many missed an acquisition that took place nearly a year ago where it is now being reported that Apple had bought a visual effects company in December 2017.
According to the report, Apple had paid $30 million for a Danish visual effects startup by the name of Spektral. So why the interest in the company? The company, initially known as CloudCutout, was known for software that would allow a photographer to digitally take the image of someone in front of a green screen and drop them into another. They later enhanced this process by using machine learning without the need for a green screen.
As Fortune points out, Apple’s interest in augmented reality could have been one of the driving factors behind why they wanted to acquire the company. Plus there have been talks about Apple developing their own augmented reality headset, so we imagine that technology like that developed by Spektral could be useful in enhancing the overall experience.
No official comments or confirmation has been made, but its co-founder and chief technical officer Toke Jansen has updated his LinkedIn profile where it now lists Apple has his employer.
Filed in . Read more about Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR).