Home Technology Twitter hires ex-Apple designer, makes AR/VR foray

Twitter hires ex-Apple designer, makes AR/VR foray

Twitter finally is joining the relatively new but promising segments of augmented and virtual reality. The division has already seen a lot of activity off late thanks to the involvement of companies like Facebook, Microsoft, or Google, which makes it a bit late in the day for Twitter to join the scene.

Nevertheless, the big news here is that Twitter is finally into AR and VR territory and seems headed in the right direction what with ex-Apple designer Alessandro Sabatelli being at the helm of affairs there. The new AR and VR team will form part of Twitter’s machine learning division named Twitter Cortex.

Apart from hiring Sabatelli, Twitter also acquired his company IXOMOXI that too has a VR background. It comes on the back of an earlier acquisition Twitter had made which again was focussed on its VR dreams eventually. That was the U.K.-based machine-learning startup Magic Pony Technology that dealt with machine learning and visual processing technology which should come in handy to further propel Twitter’s push into AR and VR space.

However, what is not known at the moment is how exactly Twitter wishes to be seen in the AR and VR segment, or what role Sabatelli will have in the company’s latest initiative. That being said, maybe Twitter will like to see its Snapchat-like #Stickers feature evolve better with sort of an AR makeover with active help from Sabatelli.

Twitter is also keen to emerge a stronger player in covering live events and could be depending on Sabatelli’s experience for accomplishing the same. The former Apple executive’s most recent venture has been the creation of a Gear VR app named Lucy, which is targeted at those visiting festivals or such events and offers a range of Snapchat-like psychedelic filters.

Otherwise, Sabatelli’s role at Apple was that of a designer and has been involved with such high-profile projects as iOS, OSX, and Watch OS. Sabatelli also contributed towards developing the iTunes music visualizer as well as the YouTube app for iPad, among other things.