~ MamakTalk ~: Google Acquires Digisfera, a Panorama-Making Company

2015年10月20日星期二

Google Acquires Digisfera, a Panorama-Making Company

digisfera-marzipano

Panorama’s are pretty cool. Remember when Google added that feature into Android? What about Photo Spheres? Well it looks like Google is now looking to get into doing more with both of those things, as they just acquired a company who specializes in making panorama’s, Digisfera. With the acquisition, the company will be discontinuing PanoTag, which was a tool that allowed developers to implement tagging functionality. However, the servers for PanoTag will continue to run through October 31st, 2016. So the features will work for another year or so. The other tool that Digisfera had, Marzipano, that will remain intact. However, they are looking to open-source Marzipano, so that everyone can use it. Marzipan is a tool that makes 360-degree images viewable in the browser. In open-sourcing Marzipano, users will be able to take advantage and embrace the web. As Marzipano is designed to work with web standards. It also has browser support with just about every major browser out there. Both desktop and mobile. It also has great performance on all of these browsers. Not to mention being extremely lightweight, around 55KB when zipped. This is a pretty big deal for the Google Maps Street View team in Mountain View.

“We’re excited to join the Street View team at Google to continue building great experiences using 360° photography.”

Google Street View already is pretty stunning. Being able to see many places throughout the world without leaving your house, or even leaving your laptop screen, is pretty amazing. Digisfera is a 5-year-old company that has captured stunning 360-degree pictures of many iconic events. Like the World Cup in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil last year, or US President Barack Obama’s inauguration in 2013. Now all of that work is coming to Street View.

Now neither company has stated how much Google acquired Digisfera for, but it’s likely a smaller amount than what they paid for Nest or even Motorola a few years ago. And the exact amount may never be known to the public. It will be interesting to see what Digisfera can add to the Street View experience over the next few years, as they fully integrate with the existing Street View team at Google.

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