Google Inc. buys Jetpac for artificial intelligence

[Transcendence]

In yet another acquisition, Google is buying photo analysis company Jetpac, a company known for providing software that analyzes websites for photos that are then compiled into city guides. In other words, Jetpac can be thought of as a photo artificial intelligence company. No details of the deal have been disclosed.

The Jetpac acquisition continues Google’s trend of buying up companies that can aid in mobile advertising. Google’s looking to increase its mobile ad business, and a company whose software can analyze photos and provide more personal mobile ads for users is a company that will serve a great financial profit for the search engine giant. Not only will Jetpac advance Google’s mobile ad profit, the company will also prove to be of great help to Android and Google+ users who don’t want to tag every photo in order to find an image of their niece, or a picture they took with the family beside a “tree†in a place that they can’t remember.

 

Artificial intelligence and photo analysis should help users who don’t tag photos to find what they’re looking for within their unlimited photo cloud storage with even basic terms, if Jetpac’s software is given proper reign.

 

Jetpac made the announcement on its website on Friday: “We’re joining Google!†the headline said, with a company thank-you to all of its supporters. Jetpac also took the time to announce that its photo detection tool, photo analyzer, and city guide will all be removed from their respective app stores on September 15th.

 

Jetpac has been known in recent days for pulling public photos from Instagram and providing local guides to specific places. The company was born in 2011, and, with the help of companies such as Khosla’s Ventures, Jerry Yang, and Morado Venture Partners, went on to raise $2.4 million in 2012. Jetpac cofounder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Pete Warden spent five years as an Apple senior engineer and is a promoter of the idea that data begets more data. Back in April of this year, Warden announced via his blog that Jetpac can now build descriptions of businesses such as hotels, restaurants, and vacation hotspots around the world. The company’s latest project involved analyzing the smiles within photos on Facebook’s Instagram to determine the happiness of the typical visitor and resident within a given city.

 

Google recently acquired mobile video ad company Directr, mobile video gaming company Twitch, and surveillance company Dropcam. The search engine giant also acquired smart thermostat company Nest as well as drone manufacturer Titan Aerospace earlier this year. The company’s most recent action involves teaming up with email giant Yahoo to provide stronger end-to-end web data encryption so that Yahoo and Gmail users can communicate back and forth without falling susceptible to the NSA’s prying eyes.