Sunday, 17 August 2014

Google Buys Jetpac

Google buys companies, startups, and interesting new technology every year and while most of its co-opted into the great Google ecosystem, many of it is barely seen by users of the search giant’s many services. Jetpac is a software developer for analyzing digital pictures, as it seeks to organize the world’s information and deliver it alongside advertisements on desktops and mobile phones.

In recent news, Google is buying Jetpac and will be removing Jetpac’s apps from the App store in coming days and ending their support for them on September 15. Jetpac is San Francisco based startup uses information gleaned from social media photos such as Facebook Inc.’s Instagram Service, to create city guides. By analyzing pictures of Food, décor, and people, Jetpac’s offers insight into city locals. Jetpac launched in 2012 as a social travel guide on iPad but later shifted focus to its Instagram driven data on its iPhone app, “Jetpac City Guides.”

Google has been highly acquisitive. Earlier this month, it said it was acquiring smartphone-messaging application Emu and video creation service Directr Inc., bolstering its mobile and advertising capabilities. The company more than tripled spending on deals in the first half of the year to $4.2 Billion. Pete Warden and Julian Green founded Jetpac, with Green now CEO and warden CTO. It has raised $2.4 million from venture capitalists firms, including Khosla ventures.


As more people upload photos and video to the web, demand has increased for services that can parse through images without written cues. Facebook earlier this year invested in artificial intelligence lab partially to improve its understanding of image and video content. Jetpac’s three application of smartphone, including a city guide, a photo analyzer, and picture detection tool will no longer be offered as downloads and support for them will end on September 15. Google has been building up its local offerings and maps offerings. Last year, Google bought mapping startup Waze Inc, paying about $1.1 Billion.

No comments: