Apple has purchased a start-up company that is building a wearable technology that can measure brain activity using magnetic fields generated by the body. It could potentially transform the Apple Watch into a device that can quantify thoughts and emotions.
Last month’s acquisition of certain assets and talents from Sonera was revealed via the EU’s Digital Markets Act. It requires the disclosure of the purchase Apple wouldn’t normally comment on.
The EU website reveals that Sonera is “developing a chip-based magnetic sensor,” but you have to delve a little further to see what the company is actually up to. A press release from 2023 (spotted by MacRumors) revealed a new round of seed funding. It spoke of the development of the “sensing modality” to non-invasively measure the magnetic fields generated by the body.
The company said that the tech could eventually make monitoring brain activity as easy as measuring heart rate data on wearable devices today. It could, the company said, lead to data-backed insights into thoughts and emotions. Wow. The company said its S1 chip could enable next-generation wearables. Now a version of the tech may end up within an Apple wearable.
“The tools we have today for measuring neural activity are either rudimentary or inaccessible, and that’s prevented us from gathering critical information about our brains and bodies,” said Sonera co-founder and CEO, Nishita Deka in the release from three years ago.
“The only way to solve this is by developing high-performance sensors that are commercially viable, which is the goal of our work at Sonera. My hope is that our approach, which is to measure biomagnetic signals on a chip, will let us achieve universal access to neural data and generate insights that will impact both consumer and clinical applications. Knowing how ambitious and challenging this goal is, I’m grateful and excited to have support from investors who believe in our mission.”
There has been nothing from either company confirming the acquisition. However, Sonera’s website is currently unavailable.
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