Google confirmed on Sunday its buyout deal with Skybox Imaging for $500 million in a report laying out its long-term and short-term plans.
The search engine giant announced in June 10 that it intended to buy Skybox in cash and use its technology to improve Google maps, and eventually provide Internet access and assist with disaster relief. Though Skybox expressed its willingness to join Google, the deal was delayed by a need for regulatory approval in the United States, Reuters reported.
"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 on in its Website.
Skybox Imaging is an enterprise that sends satellite into orbit at approximately 185 miles above the Earth. Google's acquisition of the company would enable the tech giant to capture real-time images of places and display these images in Google Maps in high resolution.
Experts predicted that by 2016, Skybox would be able to take high-definition images of all places on Earth twice a day using its 12 satellites. By 2018, the company expected to deploy 28 satellites to capture images at least three times a day.
Skybox co-founder Dan Berkenstock explained that the satellite imagery wasn't the business that they first thought they could do. They wanted to focus not on data, but on creating knowledge.
"We think we are going to fundamentally change humanity's understanding of the economic landscape on a daily basis," Berkenstock told The Wall Street Journal.
Weather maps currently in orbit do provide images that frame the Google Maps' Street View but these images have poor quality and are outdated. Skybox will reportedly display updated images such as the amount of oil pumped out of the ground in the Middle East, the measurement of croplands on Earth, and illegal backyard pools. All these images could help predict possible oil crisis, and food and water shortages.
