Apple buys Israeli "pre-speech" tech firm implicated in Gaza genocide

The world’s second-largest tech company just acquired a military-linked Israeli startup that uses “facial skin micromovements” to anticipate what users will say before they speak.
This article was originally published by ¡Do Not Panic!

Tech giant Apple has quietly paid nearly $2 billion for a “pre-speech” tech company whose employees helped Israel commit genocide in Gaza.

In the second-biggest deal in its history, Apple paid this money for a company that doesn’t have a product, doesn’t have any revenues and whose website is a single page containing 15 words.

The company, Q.ai, is developing sensors which map the imperceptible movements of a human face to determine the words someone is thinking before they’re spoken. They call it “silent speech,” or “pre-speech” — and it appears to be exactly as sinister as it sounds.

Q.ai was founded by Aviad Maizels, Avi Barliya and Yonatan Wexler, all of whom honed their skills by testing technologies of apartheid on Palestinians. Maizels is a former commander of Unit 81, the IDF division which builds Israel’s offensive cyber weapons. Barliya, according to his LinkedIn, was an intelligence officer in the Israeli air force, while Wexler is a former Unit 8200 agent.