Read AI to Reduce the Videos Codecs, and Apple Acquires Video Compression Startup, WaveOne

Hello! 🙋We have the following updates for you today! 📣

• Read introduces AI to reduce a 60 min meeting into a two-minute clip
• Apple acquires WaveOne, AI video compression startup

Read Introduces AI to Reduce a 60 Min Meeting Into a Two-Minute Clip

In the latest announcement, Read, an AI-powered platform, announces that it takes a 60-minute Zoom video and shortens it to a 2-minute video highlight reel. The sole objective is to make meetings more effective and efficient. 

There are various AI platforms either ready to use or still in research and development that condense content, files, audio, video, transcripts, etc., into an easy-to-understand and readable piece of digital information. 

Taking this legacy forward, AI-based platform Read introduces Highlights, through which a 60-minute meeting is automatically converted into a 2-minute video or a 30-second trailer. The platform uses a distinctive multi-modal approach to pinpoint the key exchanges in a meeting based on both the participants’ responses and the actual words said.

It comprehends meetings and combines text and visual analysis to build a virtual studio audience where reactions put what was said in a meeting in context. After a meeting, minutes are made accessible, including a text summary, a list of topics, action items, and important questions.

Read was founded by former Foursquare CEO David Shim in 2021, that gives you real-time analytics, summaries, transcription, playback, automated recommendations, and scores on participant engagement to measure the effectiveness of a meeting.  

Read Highlights:

• Automates the generation of written summaries and video highlights instead of manual meeting notes and recaps.
• Spreads lessons learned throughout an organization without calling in everyone.
• Read Meeting Navigator to display meeting timer, talk time metrics, and engagement and sentiment scores, all in real time.

The tool works with Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and Webex to measure audience engagement, sentiment, and overall meeting performance and makes those metrics available to all attendees. Real is featured as an essential app by Zoom Inc.

With inclusion into Essential Apps, Read will be accessible to Zoom customers and will have exclusive access to premium features at no cost for 12 months. Premium features include real-time and advanced meeting metrics along with team workspace and benchmarks.

The company has raised $10 million in seed funding from investors, including Madrona Venture Group and PSL Ventures.

Apple Acquires WaveOne, AI Video Compression Startup

Apple has acquired the start-up WaveOne, which developed artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms for compressing video, Bob Stankosh, a co-founder of WaveOne, confirmed through Linkedin.

Lubomir Bourdev and Oren Rippel established WaveOne in 2016 to use AI to power video codecs. The technology from WaveOne was independent of hardware and could cut the size of video files by as much as 50%, making it more effective for streaming.

The start-ups could comprehend a video frame and, to conserve bandwidth, prioritize faces above other scene features. It is called a “content-aware” video compression and decompression algorithm.

As the tech giant already offers a range of video streaming services, including Apple TV+, this acquisition could enable Apple to deliver higher resolutions and frame rates or save on bandwidth costs.

The acquisition of WaveOne indicates that the tech giant is continuing to invest in machine learning and AI to improve the efficiency of its services.

YouTube’s data requirements dropped by 4% as a result of Alphabet’s DeepMind’s adaptation of a machine learning algorithm for compressing YouTube videos.

For more updates, check out our Latest Tech category.