Twitter hires former Apple designer to serve as director of AR and VR
A week after acquiring the machine-learning firm Magic Pony, Twitter is venturing further into the realm of virtual reality and augmented reality. The microblogging site has acquired the music VR experience startup IXOMOXI and hired its CEO, Alessandro Sabatelli, to serve as Twitter's director of AR and VR.
Sabatelli, a former Apple designer, confirmed the news on Twitter, of course.
Twitter has acquired IXOMOXI & today is my first day as Director of AR & VR!! So excited to get to work with @qevni and the Cortex team!
-- Alessandro Sabatelli (@s4l4x) June 28, 2016
He announced he'll work with Twitter's Cortex team, which is "dedicated to developing state-of-the-art machine learning capabilities". Magic Pony is also housed within Cortex, and its technology could apply to some virtual reality or augmented reality applications.
Earlier this month, Twitter partnered with the NBA and Samsung to publish 360-degree video content from the NBA finals.