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Google has bought semantic search startup Metaweb, according to recent post on the search giant’s blog. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Metaweb develops both semantic data storage infrastructure for the web, and Freebase, an “open, shared database of the world’s knowledge”. Freebase is a massive, collaboratively edited database of cross-linked data. The idea behind the product is to create a system for building the semantic web. Freebase allows anyone to contribute, structure, search, copy and use data. It sounds like Wikipedia, but instead of arranging by articles, it is more of an almanac, organized like a database, and readable by people and software. You can read our previous coverage of Freebase here.

Clearly, Google is acquiring Metaweb to boost its own search offerings. Metaweb’s database of tagged data will help make Google search smarter. And Freebase will be maintained as a free and open database but Google will continue to develop and contribute to Freebase. According to a blog post on the Freebase site, the site will increase the frequency of its downloadable database dumps from quarterly to weekly. The company says that it will continue to support Metaweb’s existing partners, but won’t be taking on new partners.

Co-founded by Danny Hills, Metaweb has raised close to $60 million from Omidyar Network, Millennium technology Ventures, Benchmark Capital and Goldman Sachs.

Today during the Q&A session after the iPhone 4 antenna press conference a question was asked about the report in the New York Times yesterday that there will be a software fix for the issue. CEO Steve Jobs fielded the question but was confused as to how anyone would think there could be a software fix for a problem that’s an issue with many smartphones, as he put it. But SVP Scott Forstall spoke up to directly answer it. “That statement is incorrect,” Forstall stated.

He then stood up to elaborate. He says the report in NYT (which cited an anonymous source) was “patently false.” He said that there is no bug in the baseband software that is causing the issue — and so no software update can fix it.

That said, he did note that they continue to tune the way baseband works. And that they’ll continue to do that all the time. These may help certain issues, but for this issue specifically, there will be no software fix.

Earlier, Jobs also reiterated Apple’s stance that a BusinessWeek report stating Jobs was told about the antenuation issue before the iPhone 4 launched. ”Yeah, it’s a total crock,” Jobs said. He continued, “total bullshit.”