Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Snapchat buys eyewear company that lets you record video on the sly

Snapchat quietly bought a company that makes eyewear with Google Glass-like video recording capability, according to hacked Sony emails spotted by Business Insider. Private messages from Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton's inbox revealed a $15 million deal between Snapchat and a startup called Vengeance Labs.

The latter company makes a line of thick-framed fashion specs called Epiphany Eyewear, which also happen to record HD video with the touch of a side button. The $299-$499 glasses come with 8GB to 32GB of storage and let you upload the footage to a computer and the cloud, or extract photos with special software.

Neither company has officially said anything about the deal or that it even happened, but another leaked email revealed that Snapchat recently loaned Vengeance $2 million. It's unclear what Snapchat plans to do with the eyewear, but the company best known for its disappearing photos recently branched into disappearing video -- and may be looking to expand that business.

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