Twitter Inc. CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey announced in a blog post Monday that the 140-character social media company has purchased Magic Pony Technology, a London-based technology company that has developed techniques of using neural networks – systems inspired by the central nervous system of animals and are essentially designed to think like human brains to interpret functions – and machine learning to provide expanded data for images.
An example of what the technology designed by Magic Pony does is to enhance a picture or video taken on a mobile phone, or to help develop graphics for virtual reality or augmented reality applications.
According to a report from TechCrunch, the terms of the deal are not being disclosed, but according to two different sources, Twitter acquired Magic Pony for $150 million. “[The deal] takes into account retention bonuses for the staff, which numbers about 11, including [Magic Pony Technology] co-founders Zehan Wang and CEO Rob Bishop,” per TechCrunch.
“Machine learning is increasingly at the core of everything we build at Twitter,” said Mr. Dorsey in the press release. “Magic Pony’s machine learning technology will help us build strength into our deep learning teams with world-class talent, so Twitter can continue to be the best place to see what’s happening and why it matters, first. We value deep learning research to help make our world better, and we will keep doing our part to share our work and learnings with the community.”
This is the third machine learning startup Twitter has acquired, after Whetlab last year, and Madbits in 2014.
Magic Pony Technology has remained a fairly “under the radar” company, with a website that has never offered more than a simple statement about what it does and the number of patents that it has filed. There are around 20 patents in total – several of them listed here – which will now belong to Twitter. The company received some attention in the tech-world this year, as it further revealed the way that its technology worked to help enhance visuals with information that may not be in the picture itself, but essentially be recreated from composites of similar pictures, much like how the human eye works.
Magic Pony's interdisciplinary team includes 11 PhDs and alumni of some of the top labs in the world with expertise across computer vision, machine learning, high-performance computing, and computational neuroscience. Mr. Bishop will be based out of Twitter's headquarters in San Francisco, and Mr. Wang and the other members will join Twitter's growing London office.
“Our team has researched and developed state-of-the-art machine learning techniques for visual processing that can identify the features of imagery and use that information to process it in new ways,” Mr. Bishop. “Joining forces with Twitter gives us the opportunity to bring the benefits of that research to hundreds of millions of people around the world, and allows Magic Pony to contribute to better quality viewing experiences on Twitter.”
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Twitter (TWTR) Purchases Magic Pony Technology for $150 Million
Twitter Inc. CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey announced in a blog post Monday that the 140-character social media company has purchased Magic Pony Technology, a London-based technology company that has developed techniques of using neural networks – systems inspired by the central nervous system of animals and are essentially designed to think like human brains to interpret functions – and machine learning to provide expanded data for images.
An example of what the technology designed by Magic Pony does is to enhance a picture or video taken on a mobile phone, or to help develop graphics for virtual reality or augmented reality applications.
According to a report from TechCrunch, the terms of the deal are not being disclosed, but according to two different sources, Twitter acquired Magic Pony for $150 million. “[The deal] takes into account retention bonuses for the staff, which numbers about 11, including [Magic Pony Technology] co-founders Zehan Wang and CEO Rob Bishop,” per TechCrunch.
“Machine learning is increasingly at the core of everything we build at Twitter,” said Mr. Dorsey in the press release. “Magic Pony’s machine learning technology will help us build strength into our deep learning teams with world-class talent, so Twitter can continue to be the best place to see what’s happening and why it matters, first. We value deep learning research to help make our world better, and we will keep doing our part to share our work and learnings with the community.”
This is the third machine learning startup Twitter has acquired, after Whetlab last year, and Madbits in 2014.
Magic Pony Technology has remained a fairly “under the radar” company, with a website that has never offered more than a simple statement about what it does and the number of patents that it has filed. There are around 20 patents in total – several of them listed here – which will now belong to Twitter. The company received some attention in the tech-world this year, as it further revealed the way that its technology worked to help enhance visuals with information that may not be in the picture itself, but essentially be recreated from composites of similar pictures, much like how the human eye works.
Magic Pony's interdisciplinary team includes 11 PhDs and alumni of some of the top labs in the world with expertise across computer vision, machine learning, high-performance computing, and computational neuroscience. Mr. Bishop will be based out of Twitter's headquarters in San Francisco, and Mr. Wang and the other members will join Twitter's growing London office.
“Our team has researched and developed state-of-the-art machine learning techniques for visual processing that can identify the features of imagery and use that information to process it in new ways,” Mr. Bishop. “Joining forces with Twitter gives us the opportunity to bring the benefits of that research to hundreds of millions of people around the world, and allows Magic Pony to contribute to better quality viewing experiences on Twitter.”
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