Google buying social travel apps designer JetPac

Google said late last night that it is buying San Francisco-based startup, JetPac, a designer of social travel apps.  The firm however, did not disclose financial details of the deal, technology news site Tech2 reported.

''We'll be removing Jetpac's apps from the App Store in the coming days, and ending support for them on 9/15,'' stated JetPac's homepage.

The company's app uses pictures from various social networking sites to create city guides to provide contextual information through pictures. Essentially, it was taking the reviews concept to the next level with actual photographs and visual data.

According to commentators, the app could be readily used within Google Now, if one had to look for specific use cases within Google's products. Google already showed users nearby restaurants and photo spots in Google Now.

Further, Google+ allowed users to search for their photos using generic keywords like sunset and cat, which could be further expanded with JetPac's technology.

The move comes at a time when Google is stepping up travel-related features in Google Maps through Nearby Places as also in the Niantic Labs (a Google company) app Field Trip, which saw Google Now integration for Android.

According to Venture Beat, the move was aimed at consolidation of Google's artificial intelligence initiative. 

Jetpac chief technology officer Peter Warden and his colleagues had managed to take a complex branch of artificial intelligence known as computer vision and make it easy for lots of people to use.

The team was skilled in deep learning, an area in which Google had done plenty of work. However, it could use more talent and ideas for ways to implement image-recognition technologies as plenty other companies, including Microsoft and Baidu, beefed up their own deep-learning operations.

Deep learning involves training systems called artificial neural networks on loads of information derived from audio, images, and other inputs, and then presenting the systems with new information and receiving inferences about it in response.

Jetpac received a $2.4-million funding round in 2012, with investors including Khosla Ventures, Morado Venture Partners, and Jerry Yang.

Earlier, the Jetpac app allowed users to explore travel pictures from their Facebook friends to help people decide on their  travel destinations.

More recently the company developed a mechanism for spotting smiles in pictures to discern how happy people were in a city.

The company started operations in 2011.