Google Buys U.K. Start-Up Plink, a Shazam for Art

Google has just announced it's buying up Plink, a nifty little U.K. start-up that calls itself a visual search engine developer. The plan is to apply its algorithms to Google's visual search platform, Goggles. Launched just four months ago by a pair of British PhD students, Mark Cummins and James Philbin, Plink's app, PlinkArt, allows users to take photos of paintings with their smartphones before analyzing and identifying them. Think Shazam, but for images, rather than sounds.

Cummins and...