Dropbox has acquired startup Bubbli in order to secure the company’s 3D photo streaming technology. According to TechCrunch, emails were sent out to users concerning the acquisition this week, stating that Dropbox purchased the company for its three-dimensional photo stitching technology. Financial details were not disclosed. Developed by Stanford alumni Ben Newhouse and Terrence McArdle, the Bubbli app gives users the chance to create “bubbles”, 360-degree photo panoramas formed by stitching together photos through smartphone tilting and pivots.
It looks like Dropbox has made another acquisition today in the photo space: it has acquired Bubbli, a startup that has built some innovative ways of incorporating 3D technology into 2D views, and packaging it in a mobile app for ordinary consumers to use. We’re reaching out to get more details from both companies. For now, Bubbli has been sending out a notice to its users today announcing the deal. The note points out that Bubbli is not popping, so to speak. The tech is getting integrated into Dropbox, and in the meantime the existing Bubbli app will stay alive. Bubbli was founded by two Stanford alums, Ben Newhouse and Terrence McArdle, who have respectively broken ground in imaging technology. McArdle “invented the first seamless digital spherical photo in 1991, three years before the release of QTVR,” Bubbli notes on its site. Meanwhile, Ben — while working at Yelp several years ago — created Yelp Monocle, the “first Augmented Reality app to launch on the US App Store.”