Twitter buys into Magic Pony

Machine learning is increasingly at the core of everything, said Twitter as it buys into Magic Pony Technology. The London-based technology company is tipped to be acquired for US$150 million, according to Tech Crunch.Magic Pony has developed machine learning techniques for visual processing which is an area Twitter is looking to make its moves into. Magic Pony’s technology, based on research by the team, creates algorithms that can understand the features of imagery. It will be used to enhance Twitter’s strength in live and video.The acquisition of Magic Pony builds on other investments it has made in machine learning, beginning with the acquisitions of Madbits in 2014 which looks to understanding the content of an image. Last year Twitter also bought into live video streaming app Periscope to make a move into creating video content.On its blogpost, Twitter said machine learning is powering much of the work it is currently doing to “make it easier to create, share, and discover the very best content” so that every time users open Twitter they are immersed in the most relevant news, stories, and events.Magic Pony’s team will be joining Twitter Cortex, a team of engineers, data scientists, and machine learning researchers dedicated to building a product in which people can easily find new experiences to share and participate in.  The team includes 11 PhDs with expertise across computer vision, machine learning, high-performance computing, and computational neuroscience, who are alumni of some of the top labs in the world.“We are continuing to build strength into our deep learning teams with world-class talent to help Twitter 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,” said CEO Jack Dorsey.