If there is one thing we are sure to be part of Google‘s future — both imminent and in its long term plans — it is artificial intelligence, and, in particular, machine learning. We saw it prominently at this year’s I/O back in May, and now the company is making one addition to its portfolio that will only further the company’s ambitions….
The Mountain View company seems to have in fact struck a deal in Paris, by acquiring a relatively small, local startup called “Moodstocks”. The firm, which utilizes machine learning techniques in the field of image recognition, is best known for its existing commercial application, “Overlay”, which takes advantage of an internally built API for smartphones to identify objects at impressive speeds.
Google has been doing this by itself to some extent with its own Goggles app, but the small company certainly has managed to catch the search giant’s attention nonetheless; a testimony to the value of its underlying technology — and if videos showing their product are any indication, we sure understand why it would be so.
It is not known what the sum of the deal is, but Moodstocks’ engineers are said to be on their way to joining Google’s Paris R&D lab in the next few weeks, while their existing product will be phased out entirely come the end of its users’ subscription time (meaning that current customers won’t be cut out all of a sudden).
There is no indication that Moodstocks’ API will be directly integrated in Google Photos or the company’s search engine, but chances are that we will see it or its creators manifest in improving either (or possibly both) of these services sooner or later — we certainly hope so.
You can read Google’s full blogpost here (in French), or head over to Moodstocks’ website for their own statement at this link.
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