14 DAY TRIAL // Google is shutting down projects left and right, in an effort to concentrate focus on the big things that have an impact. Whether Larry Page's strategy is the right one remains to be seen; in the meantime, Google continues to shed off weight.
Late last week, Google announced that several projects were being shutdown, merged into bigger projects or set loose, i.e. open-sourced.
Among them is Sky Map, an app that many Android users should be at least familiar with and it's probably one of the first things first-time buyers did with their new smartphone.
But Google sees no more value in continuing to support the project and will open-source the technology, with the Carnegie Mellon University taking the reins from now on.
"Created by half a dozen Googlers at the Pittsburgh office in our 20% time, the app was designed to show off the amazing capabilities of the sensors in the first generation Android phones," Google's John Taylor and Kevin Serafini wrote.
"Mostly, however, we wrote it because we love astronomy. And, thanks to Android’s broad reach, we have managed to share this passion with over 20 million Android users," they said.
"We are collaborating with Carnegie Mellon University in an exciting partnership that will see further development of Sky Map as a series of student projects. Sky Map’s development will now be driven by the students, with Google engineers remaining closely involved as advisors," they added.
The app itself will be open-sourced so anyone can continue to improve it. The fact is, the app, while very interesting, saw little improvement since launch.
There also really wasn't any Google project that this could be merged into, except perhaps for Google Earth and Sky. Hopefully, the app will see more love and attention now that students will be working on improving it.