Amazon Acquires Software Maker SnapTell

Amazon.com Inc., working to build up its mobile capabilities, bought visual product-search company SnapTellfor an undisclosed amount. SnapTell, Palo Alto, CA start-up, makes a popular software app for Apple's iPhone allowing users to take a picture of the cover of a book, DVD or other product they want to buy, & connect to an online store in order to buy it. Amazon already makes its own product-search app for the iPhone & other mobile phones it lets consumers to take a photo of a product & have it identified in Amazon's product catalog. Amazon's existing service relies on humans to match photos and products, while SnapTell uses software to find a match. The SnapTell purchase is Amazon's latest move to beef up its mobile capabilities. In April, the Seattle company acquired Lexcycle, maker of a popular app called Stanza for reading books on the iPhone. Amazon has continued to develop Stanza as a separate program from its own Kindle e-book reading application for the iPhone. Amazon said it intends to run SnapTell as a standalone business unit within its A9.com search-engine subs. Amazon will continue to "work in innovations in search technologies and enabling visual shopping on a range of mobile devices & platforms. "It's very early days for image recognition based search tech & we believe there is a lot of innovation in visual product search ahead of us." The start-up said acquisition would allow its tech to better work with Amazon. "One of the most heard requests was how we can integrate better with Amazon's fabulous shopping experience," SnapTell said.