Update: Apple Buys Poly9 for its “Google Earth” Offering
Report: “Poly9 had been using PushPin technology, so the two development teams knew each others’ work before the acquisitions.” That report also suggests the goal of the two acquisitions is an augmented reality app.
The San Francisco Business Times says Poly9 is behind “the program used by NORAD to track Santa Claus.”
- San Francisco Business Times
—- original post 7/14/10 ——
Apple has announced the acquisition of Poly9 a 3D app for visualizing imagery akin to Google Earth. The quick take by most folks is that it, along with last year’s acquisition, Placebase, will form the core of its own geo offering.
Poly9 is not a site that geospatial folks talk about much. I found one ref about it on this blog - related to the 2006 Superbowl. I found one mention on Directions Magazine, from my coverage of Where 2.0 in 2008:
Poly9 highlights FreeEarth. Two big reasons to note this 3D globe and its API: It’s got a solid API and it requires no special plug-in (it uses Flash). Or as the company puts it: It’s "a cross-browser, cross-platform 3D globe." One more reason to pay attention? FreeEarth supports GeoRSS and WMS. I’m anti-globe for two reasons: the overhead of the software and my lack of navigation ability in 3D. FreeEarth solves half of my problems! Further, I think it’d be a great platform for Joe Francica’s vision for Business Globes.
It seems the newer version of the tech is HTML5 compatible.
- Christian Science Monitor
- original French announcement (translation)
- InformationWeek
