Google Buys Social Imaging Startup JetPac

Google has said it will acquire JetPac, San Francisco-based start-up whose artificial-intelligence technology extracts data from photos and uses it to automatically create city guides.

JetPac said it will withdraw its software from distribution shortly and will cease supporting it next month.

App removed

“We’ll be removing Jetpac’s apps from the App Store in the coming days, and ending support for them on 9/15 [15 September],” JetPac said in a statement. “We look forward to working on exciting projects with our colleagues at Google.”

The companies didn’t disclose the amount involved in the transaction, and Google didn’t say how it plans to use JetPac’s technology.

JetPac was founded in 2011 and scans photos from various services including Instagram, now owned by Facebook. Aside from identifying the sentiments expressed in the photos, the company’s technology allows users to specify social types including “Intellectuals”, “Skaters” and “Business Travellers”.

Buying spree

Google’s recent acquisitions include Directr, a smartphone video editing platform bought by Google’s YouTube earlier this month, and messaging application Emu.

Earlier this year it bought SlickLogin, an Israeli smart identification technology startup, and fraud startups Imperium and Spider.io.

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