Google buys machine vision startup focusing on 'instant object recognition'

It's a good time to be a machine learning startup. Two weeks after Twitter bought London-based Magic Pony, Google has purchased French firm Moodstocks. The acquisition was made for an unknown sum, and seems primarily a grab for talent. Moodstocks' engineers and researchers will move to Google's Paris R&D site, and the startup's primary commercial product -- an image recognition API for smartphones -- will be phased out. "Ever since we started Moodstocks, our dream has been to give eyes to machines by turning cameras into smart sensors able to make sense of their surroundings," said Moodstocks in a statement.