Google Acquires Facial Recognition Company PittPatt

PittPatt is a 7 year old company that specializes in developing facial recognition software and the company has been bought by none other than Google. The company which began as a project at the Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute, develops technology that recognizes faces in videos, matches people by sorting photos, etc. The company has created alogrithms in face detection, face recognition and face tracking.

According to a note on PittPatt’s website, “Joining Google is the next thrilling step in a journey that began with research at Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute in the 1990s and continued with the launching of Pittsburgh Pattern Recognition (PittPatt) in 2004. We’ve worked hard to advance the research and technology in many important ways and have seen our technology come to life in some very interesting products. At Google, computer vision technology is already at the core of many existing products (such as Image Search, YouTube, Picasa, and Goggles), so it’s a natural fit to join Google and bring the benefits of our research and technology to a wider audience. We will continue to tap the potential of computer vision in applications that range from simple photo organization to complex video and mobile applications.”

The company is run by three “image analysis” and “pattern recognition” specialists who have got their PhD’s from Carnegie Mellon University.

While Facebook already has the Facial-recognition feature where users have the option to tag photos, this acquisition will probably bring in something innovative to Google+ as well.