Apple has purchased facial recognition startup Polar Rose, possibly to build an alternative to Google Goggles. Goggles, which does not enable facial recognition, has yet to hit the iPhone.
Apple has purchased Swedish computer vision startup
Polar Rose, which
makes facial recognition software Apple could leverage in an alternative
application to Google Goggles.
Polar Rose offers computer vision software, or applications that use complex
algorithms to identify and derive meaning from images instead of text.
The company
ceased offering its free tagging system on Flickr and Facebook
Sept. 6, citing "interest by larger companies in licensing our
technology."
In as close to a confirmation as Apple is going to get, a spokesperson for
the company told eWEEK, "Apple buys smaller technology companies from time
to time, and we generally do not comment on our purpose or plans."
The news was discovered by
Norwegian blog Mac1. U.S.
blog
9 to 5 Mac picked up on it.
According to a translation to English via Google Translate, Mac1 said Polar
Rose's software is similar to Apple's software for Google's Picasa or iPhoto
for Mac OS X.
However, Polar Rose said on its Website that its technology also
"enables automatic creation of events based on visual cues in
images." To wit, Polar Rose offers three core products.
The FaceCloud server platform allows social networks and other vendors to
add facial recognition to any Web service. The FaceLib mobile face recognition
library is for Google's Android platform and Apple's iPhone. And FaceCore is
Polar Cloud's core face detection and recognition module, which other companies
would plug into their solutions.
The company also sports a Web-based photo-sharing system, a mobile photo
browser, photo event creation and the augmented ID technology Recognizr.
Any one of those technologies could be useful to Apple, which is hungrily
trying to expand its purview on the Web.
Apple could be particularly interested in appropriating FaceLib for its
iPhone or iPad to get a leg up on Google's
Goggles computer vision app.
Goggles lets users with Android smartphones search by snapping pictures of
locations such as landmarks and objects such as wine bottles and other
merchandise, or even art.
Goggles has yet to
make its way onto the iPhone, a common hold-up for
applications trying to find their way into Apple's scrupulous App Store.
The Polar Rose buy might be a good indication as to why, providing a
differentiator for Apple. As GigaOm
noted, Google has been reluctant to imbibe Goggles with facial
recognition technology until it hashes out how to handle user privacy.
Theoretically, Goggles with added facial recognition could let users snap
photos from smartphones of users on the street and call up information about
that person from Facebook, LinkedIn or other information sources.
With Polar Rose, Apple could seek to provide this technology for its
millions of iPhone and iPad users. It could also use the photo-sharing system,
mobile photo browser and augmented ID technology to boost its popular
smartphone.
Whatever Apple does, it will certainly be geared toward leveraging facial
recognition for the mobile Web in a manner that captures Google's attention.
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