Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Google Buys Neven Vision

Google has purchased Neven Vision, a Santa Monica-based firm that provides image recognization software, according to a post on the search engine giant's blog this morning. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Google said in its blog that it does not have any specific features to show off today from Neven, but that the technology could be used to automatically extract information from a photo. Google said that the technology may make it a lot easier to organize and find the photos you care about. Neven Vision was most recently focusing on mobile visual search and deploying its technology in cell phones. Current investors in Neven are Anthem Ventures, Zone Ventures, Falcon Ventures, Encipta, and NTEC, according to Jordan Posell, the firm's CFO. Neven's technology is similar to another competitor in the space, Riya, a firm which is focused on developing search tools for recognizing faces in photos. More information »