Google buys a Portuguese startup

Google announces that the company has acquired a Portuguese based startup, Digisfera for an undisclosed amount. With the acquisition, Google is expected to improve its Street View application as all Digisfera's employees will be working with Google for its Street View team.

Digisfera was founded in January 2011 and the company main focus with panoramic photography especially the 360° photography technology is what attracting Google to acquire it. According to the VentureBeat,

Google will discontinue one of the company features which is the PanoTag. The feature which let developers to add tagging functionality to their apps will be withdrawn starting this October 31.

For Digisfera Marzipano technology, Google will enable the technology under open source license soon as reported by Engadget. This move is to enable more developers to improve the technology as Google saw it having a huge potential.

Among notable feature in Marzipano is the app has the ability to function with web standards, it has full support for all types of browsers including Microsoft's Internet Explorer. The best feature for the tool is the ability for it to display 360º photography on any platform without disrupting it even though the tool is only 55kb in size.

According to Business Insider, Google is expected to leverage the knowledge of the Digisfera team in handling lots of big projects to increase its Street View photography especially with the launch of its latest venture into virtual reality.

Previously Google launched a program that will enable students to take a field trip via virtual reality using Google Cardboard headset.

It is still unclear whether Digisfera founders Antonio Cabral and Manual Cabral will be working with Google too or not. However, both of them are happy with the acquisition as mentioned in their company's statement.

"We're excited to share that Digisfera is joining Google. We started Digisfera almost five years ago and have had the opportunity to work in many interesting projects involving 360º photography over the years. We're excited to join the Street View team at Google to continue building great experiences using 360° photography", the founders said in a statement.

Digisfera had involved with many big projects especially with 360º photography in recent years. Their involvement includes photographing the inauguration of the US president, Barack Obama and covering the stadium environment during the 2014 World Cup in Brazil and also 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.

As for now, Google still refused to give further details regarding the acquisition and the company's spokesperson is not available for comment.