The Israeli startup Quiksee confirmed that it has been acquired by Google and its employees will join the Google Geo team. “Quiksee is an Internet start-up company that focuses on creating location based interactive videos. Our vision is to fill the world maps with Quiksee tours that will let people virtually travel across the planet as if they were there,” explains Quicksee’s site.
Haaretz says that “the firm’s technology is regarded as the missing link in Google’s Street View service (used by both Google Maps and Google Earth), which allows users to view photos along numerous streets around the world”. Quiksee’s software allowed you to create interactive panoramic tours from your videos, without having to use a Street View camera. TechCrunch speculates that Google could “accept geo-tagged, 3D panoramas uploaded by consumers” to improve Google Maps.
Here’s a video that shows how Quiksee could integrate with Google Street View:
Google might even use Quiksee to add interactive Street View videos to Google Maps, like the ones demoed by Microsoft’s Blaise Agüera y Arcas at a TED conference.
