Google has an unfortunate history of buying companies — and then running them into the ground. Sometimes, this leads to a bit of ill-will between the Internet giant and the companies’ founders. We saw a perfect example of this when Dodgeball’s founders (including current Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley) quit Google in a huff. Today, the co-founder of another acquisition, Panoramio, is out as well, but he insists the company is happy under Google.
In a post today on the Panoramio blog, co-founder Eduardo Manchón, says that after four and a half years working on the service, it’s time to leave. Google acquired Panoramio in mid-2007 and Manchón has been there ever since, running the service. He notes that, “Acquisitions can be complicated, and the private nightmare of a founder is the site not surviving the process, but after some time Panoramio feels very comfortable at Google.” → Read More
Image recognition is still one of those things that humans find easy to do but computers keep stumbling over. Some Google researchers published a paper describing progress they are making in teaching computers how to identify famous landmarks, which may eventually be applied more broadly to image search in general.
In a blog post, Jay Yagnik, the head of Cmputer Vision Research at Google, writes:
While we’ve gone a long way towards unlocking the information stored in text on the web, there’s still much work to be done unlocking the information stored in pixels.
Microsoft’s Photosynth is undeniably gorgeous – it lets users “walk” through various locales by stitching together thousands of user-submitted photos to create a virtual 3D environment. Unfortunately, up until today this experience has only been available to Windows users. Cue Panoramio, a Spanish photo site that Google acquired in May 2007. Panoramio has just launched a new “Look Around” feature that seems like a toned down (but still impressive) version of Photosynth. And because it’s in Flash, you’ll be able to try it out on your Mac. The site has stitched together photos from areas with high image density (mostly landmarks and city squares) to create its version of walk-through albums. At launch users can choose from sites including the top of the Empire State Building, the Sydney Opera House, and the Taj Mahal. Users can even create their own “Look Around” destinations by taking 10-20 photos of their favorite places. Panoramio’s system indexes new photos and searches for matches every two weeks. For more information and available destinations, check out Frank Taylor’s blog and the video below. CrunchBase Information Panoramio Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
