Twitter acquires UK’s Magic Pony with video in mind

Twitter has acquired Magic Pony Technology, a UK-based outfit that specialises in machine learning techniques for visual processing.

Twitter said Magic Pony’s technology would be used to enhance the company’s strength in live video. The technology is based on research by the London-based team to create algorithms that can understand the features of imagery.

The company holds over 20 patents covering machine learning based approaches for visual processing on web, desktop and mobile.

The move is the latest acquisition by Twitter in the field of machine learning, following the purchase of Madbits in 2014 and Whetlab in 2015.

Magic Pony’s team will join the Twitter Cortex, a broader team of engineers, data scientists, and machine learning researchers. Magic Pony will serve as the European homebase for Twitter’s machine learning efforts.

In a blog post, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said that Twitter Cortex was “dedicated to building a product [Twitter] in which people can easily find new experiences to share and participate in”.