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Apple’s Acquisition of Xnor.ai Aims to Deliver TinyML to Edge Devices

In AI, Technology News by James KobielusLeave a Comment

Bringing Xnor.ai into its product portfolio provides Apple with an edge app development tool geared for a wide range of programmers, not just those who are knowledgeable about AI, DL, and ML. Xnor.ai’s SDK allows programmers to easily drop AI-centric code and data libraries into device-based apps. The tool provides a unified abstraction layer for building, compilation, and training of edge AI models that frees developers from having to worry about target-device CPUs and AI accelerators. Beyond that, let’s take a look at what we think is on the horizon for Apple on the acquisition front.

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Visa’s Acquisition of Plaid is a $5.3Bn Bet on the Future of Finance

In Technology News by Shelly KramerLeave a Comment

Visa’s acquisition of Plaid is a $5Bn bet on the future of finance, and it’s a smart bet at that. With some 11,000 bank and financial services company clients, covering 200 million consumer accounts, Plaid is currently providing connections for 80 percent of the largest U.S. fintech apps. That’s no small market share — and that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Today, Plaid’s APIs are used by one in four people in the U.S. with a bank account — there’s tremendous opportunity for growth. In addition, this acquisition provides multiple opportunities for Visa. Here’s a look at some of those opportunities, thoughts on what’s ahead for Visa and for Plaid, as well as what we expect in the fintech market in the months ahead.