Google acquires natural language engine Wavii for over $30M (Update: Wavii closed)

Update: Following Google’s acquisition, Wavii has shut down its service and pulled its iOS app.

Google has purchased natural language processing engine Wavii for more than $30 million, according to TechCrunch.

The acquisition has several similarities to Yahoo’s recent purchase of Summly, which Yahoo integrated into its iOS app just yesterday, as both start-ups focused on parsing text from content and delivering summarized snippets of information.

Even the price, at $30 million, rings similar to Yahoo’s acquisition of Summly.

Wavii could be useful in improving Google Now, Google’s voice search service, and was reportedly in high demand as a bidding war broke out between Apple and Google.

You can try out Wavii for yourself both on the web and on iOS.