Google has purchased a satellite imaging company, Skybox, for $500 million in cash earlier this week, Washington Post reported.
According to Google, Skybox will be helping them in keeping Google Maps up-to-date with the latest satellite images. Over time, Google hopes that Skybox’s team and technology will be able to help them improve Internet access and disaster relief – areas Google has long been interested in.
The satellites and its images provided by Skybox may not be the only thing that Google has eyes out for.
What made the small 5-year-old company stand out for Google is its data processing capabilities. Processing satellite data – turning high-quality, recent images of the earth into useful information – is a complex process, Forbes has learned.
Skybox mines around one terabyte of data daily and the company’s own marketing materials play up its data processing ahead of its satellites. With Google’s latest acquisition of the company, they will have a chance to make big data even bigger.
“The time is right to join a company who can challenge us to think even bigger and bolder, and who can support us in accelerating our ambitious vision,” Skybox said in a blog post.
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SOURCE: A. Donasales
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