Yahoo has purchased SkyPhrase, a start-up that builds Natural Language Processing (NLP) technology, for an undisclosed sum.
On Monday, December 2, Yahoo confirmed the acquisitions of SkyPhrase with an announcement on its blog.
"We have acquired SkyPhrase. The team of four has built amazing natural language processing technology and we're excited to welcome them to our Yahoo Labs team in New York," reads Yahoo's blog post.
SkyPhrase perseveres to make human speech more decipherable by computers. The technology developed by SkyPhrase helps "computers to understand more complex and precise human language than ever before."
Per SkyPhrase's website, it will be joining Yahoo's New York office in the Yahoo Labs department and work with the company to make "computers deeply understand people's natural language and intentions."
"In Yahoo, we have found a company that not only shares our vision, but delivers a rich collection of information and services to a massive user base. We are excited to join Yahoo Labs to continue to work on our shared vision of making computers deeply understand people's natural language and intentions. We can't wait to take things to the next level together," said SkyPhrase in a statement on its website.
However, it is not known yet how Yahoo will integrate SkyPhrase into its current operations. But a possibility exists that SkyPhrase could work on features related to fantasy sports for Yahoo, as it is a primary product line for the company and the start-up has past experience in the same line,
An app developed by SkyPhrase in the past simplifies the search of relevant statistics for fantasy football users.
Yahoo could thus effectively deploy SkyPhrase's NLP technology in advance fantasy sports, and the app would also be quite handy and can easily be integrated into Yahoo's fantasy sports products where the company has considerable investment.
With SkyPhrase's NPL technology in the bag, Yahoo will be able to tailor its content to a mobile customer base with ease. Especially in light of the growing popularity of devices which respond to voice queries and crisp content.
