TechCrunch is reporting that Like.com is in the "final stages" of a deal that would see the site and its technology become part of Google; the deal is said to be costing Google "upwards" of $100 million. However, this deal is for the website and its tech only, not the company as a whole.
This site is part of the company that Google was in talks with back in 2005, though this deal never came to the light of day, it seems that this one will. Riya was the name of the company at the time and was a specialist in facial recognition software.
The overall project that was called "Riya" was shut down last year, but the facial recognition software is still being used today for Like.com. The technology enables users to search for images using other images, and because of this, Like.com has some interesting features that Google currently doesn"t have.
This new image search technology may be used for an Android style update or it could be for the rumored social media network that Google is supposedly making. Or, Google may just be gathering Like.com to further strengthen its search engine dominance by allowing people to search for similar images. None of this is for confirmed at this stage, and only time will tell if this deal is even really happening.