Google’s M&A of the Day: “Visual Search” Start-Up, Plink

It’s Monday, which means that Google has purchased another company. Today’s deal is for Plink, a U.K. start-up that specializes in “visual search”–the future-is-now technology that lets you hunt for something on the Web by taking a picture of it with your smartphone.

Plink’s PlinkArt app lets you do that on Google’s Android platform, and co-founders Mark Cummins and James Philbin won $100,000 for their work during a Google’s (GOOG) Developer Challenge last year. The kicker, it turns out, was an offer to come work for the search giant, where they’ll focus their energy on the company’s Google Goggles project.

Here’s a Google primer on visual search via Google Goggles: