U.K. firm buys Blinkx video search engine
Last Updated: Wednesday, April 25, 2007 | 9:03 PM ET
CBC News
Related
Internal Links
British software company Autonomy Corp. Ltd. on Wednesday said it was exercising an option to buy consumer video search firm Blinkx Inc., which it will relaunch.
Autonomy, whose technology is used by video search engine Blinkx, said it would spin out its consumer division, which is responsible for developing and applying its technology, as a new company to be called Blinkx PLC.
The new company would focus exclusively on the consumer market while Autonomy would cater to the enterprise market.
In October, Blinkx Inc. signed a deal with Microsoft Corp. to incorporate its search functions into the software giant's MSN and Live.com services.
Blinkx Inc. uses Autonomy's technology to index video from CNN, BBC and YouTube, among other broadcast and internet services. The videos can then be searched on Blinkx's website or others that license the underlying technology.
The privately held company employs speech recognition capabilities to extract search data, which it has used to index some six million hours of online video, audio and television programming.
Shares of Blinkx PLC are expected to start trading on the London Stock Exchange's AIM market in May. Autonomy would own about 10 per cent of the new firm's common shares.
CastTV wins $3.1 million in funding
In an unrelated development, San Francisco, Calif.-based web video search startup Cast TV Inc. said it has received $3.1 million US in first-round funding from venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson.
CastTV on Tuesday said it "has signed a two-year deal with a major media corporation to provide online video crawling and indexing technology for the company's online video search offering."
Netscape Inc. founder Marc Andreessen is a member of CastTV's board of directors.
Draper Fisher Jurvetson has previously backed technology startups that include Hotmail, now owned by Microsoft, and Voice over Internet Protocol company Skype, now owned by eBay Inc.
Share Tools
Top News Headlines
- Whitney Houston's body headed home to New Jersey
- Whitney Houston's body was flown out of Los Angeles, and headed to New Jersey, where her family was making arrangements for a funeral at the end of the week. more »
- Mandatory gun sentence struck down by Ontario judge
- An Ontario Superior Court judge has struck down a mandatory minimum sentence for a first offence of possessing a loaded firearm. more »
- Online surveillance critics siding with child porn: Toews
- Critics of a bill that would give law enforcement new powers to access Canadians' electronic communications are aligning themselves with child pornographers, Canada's public safety minister says. more »
- Low vitamin D in womb tied to poor language skills
- Children born to women who had low levels of vitamin D during their pregnancy are more likely to have language problems, a new study suggests. more »
Latest Technology & Science News Headlines
- Canada dropping the ozone ball, scientists warn
- Leading atmospheric scientists are warning that Canada's cuts to its ozone monitoring program are already having effects on the world's ability to monitor air quality and ozone depletion. more »
- Ban Wi-Fi in classroom, Ontario teachers union urges
- The Ontario English Catholic Teacher's Association says computers in all new schools should be hardwired instead of setting up wireless networks, citing safety concerns. more »
- How to think like a Neanderthal
- A lack of creativity and the inability to innovate may have led to the extinction of the Neanderthals, two researchers argue in a book that aims to get inside the Neanderthal mind. more »
- FBI seeks social media data mining tool
- The U.S. government is seeking software that can mine social media to predict everything from future terrorist attacks to foreign uprisings, according to requests posted online by federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies. more »
Bob McDonald's Blog
Glacier Discovery Walk: Will the visitor centre enhance the view? Feb. 10, 2012 3:17 PM Environment minister Peter Kent has announced the construction of a new Glacier Discovery Walk and visitor centre on the Icefields Parkway in Jasper National Park. It raises the issue of how to balance commercial development in our National Parks against the preservation of the last refuges of wilderness.
Quirks & Quarks
- February 11: Inside the Mind of a Neandertal Feb. 10, 2012 4:01 PM Can we get inside the mind of a species that's been dead for 30,000 years? A new book, How to Think Like a Neanderthal, suggests we can. The authors reconstruct a creature like us in many ways, but with important differences.
Latest Features
- 'Disgusting' court backlog may free hit and run accused
- Whitney Houston was found unconscious underwater, police say
- HMCS Corner Brook collision damage extensive
- Adele wins best album, best record Grammys
- Whitney Houston autopsy results withheld
- U.S. bank reforms could hurt Canadians, Flaherty fears
- Father, son recall close call on ice road
- CBC digital music service launched
- Quebec town 'heartbroken' after killing of woman, sisters
