OpenAI buys Glass Imaging, the startup founded by the engineers behind Apple's Portrait Mode
OpenAI buys smartphone camera maker Glass Imaging for $300M
OpenAI has acquired Glass Imaging, a Los Altos startup founded in 2019 by former Apple engineers Ziv Attar and Tom Bishop, who previously led the team that developed Apple's Portrait Mode. The deal is valued at over $300 million, according to The Wall Street Journal. Glass Imaging uses neural networks to learn the characteristics of individual smartphone camera systems, improving images at the moment of capture rather than editing them afterward. OpenAI is rumored to be developing its own hardware, including smartphones and earbuds.
Rather than using AI to edit a photo after it's been taken, Glass Imaging uses neural networks to learn about individual camera systems — like the different cameras on various smartphone models — to yield better images from the moment the shutter clicks.
- devindotcom
what an interesting acquisition. I was the one who wrote them up originally for TC: https://techcrunch.com/2022/03/22/glass-rethinks-the-smartph...
they had a really cool optical approach that I kind of felt immediately was doomed in the consumer market but would likely find a cool, valuable niche. The unique distortion patterns and front element I felt probably ruled out cinema but beyond that I had no idea. looks like they pivoted at some point but their expertise in lens accommodation does seem like it could be helpful.
- fidotron
Both Apple and Google have dropped the ball enough with the state of recent releases that some iPhone-equivalent-disruption product from the AI industry is becoming conceivable, though I would be surprised if it turns out not to be running Android in some form.
Putting a lot of effort into pushing complexity into software to reduce manufacturing complexity is precisely the sort of thing you worry about when you're getting serious about building consumer products.
- KevinMS
They are just feeling around in the dark looking for the killer app to save their business.
- wannabe44
At least something they don't claim to automate with AI. Apparently Anthropic acquired stainless for $300M instead of vibing it.
- tantalor
That's an odd choice. I would have thought camera modules are commodity parts (have been for a long time) and there's not much margin there.
Probably they are buying the staff, not the technology.