Google buys machine-learning company Moodstocks
Someone at Google really likes sneakers: The company has just bought a French machine-learning startup that taught a computer how to recognize 15,000 different types of them.
Paris-based Moodstocks builds image and object recognition software using deep learning techniques, and offered an Android app and visual search API that could recognize certain kinds of objects. By analyzing video from a smartphone camera, and correlating it with accelerometer readings to determine how the camera is moving around, the software is able to infer information about the three-dimensional shape of objects in the video, facilitating their recognition.
In February 2015 the company demonstrated its ability to identify sneakers through its app. Three months later, after training the software using 15,000 photos of shoes from an online retailer's website, Moodstocks claimed to be able to shop online for all the sneakers on sale in a Macy's store.
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