Google has a reputation for killing off its products. So much so, that there are multiple websites dedicated to tracking the company’s murders. At one of its campuses, Google made an actual product graveyard to decorate for Halloween.
Before Google Photos, there was Google+ Photos and prior to that Picasa. Google acquired the desktop photos management app in 2004 and made it free. While Google announced today that they are shutting down Picasa, diehard users will still be able to use quite a few features.
Facebook Moments, the app for exchanging photos amongst friends who all find themselves at the same place at the same time (i.e. at a party), has been updated with a neat new way to relive a moment in the past.
Google has taken the wraps off its new Google Photos product at its I/O conference today. Google says Photos is a private single home for your personal photo and video collection that you can access from any device. Photos boasts the ability to automatically organize your photos for you as well as built-in sharing capabilities.
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Google may have grown increasingly corporate over the years, but I love the fact that it still sets out to do cool things just because it can. Working with the University of Washington, the team found a way to create fully automated timelapse photos of both landscapes and cityscapes using photos pulled in from popular photo-sharing sites like Yahoo’s Flickr and its own Picasa.
First, we cluster 86 million photos into landmarks and popular viewpoints. Then, we sort the photos by date and warp each photo onto a common viewpoint. Finally, we stabilize the appearance of the sequence to compensate for lighting effects and minimize flicker.
The team says that the results are not just fun to watch, but also serve a useful purpose …
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Google has announced a new feature for its Gmail web interface that allows users to quickly insert Auto Backup photos from your smartphone into messages. Now you don’t have to worry about syncing photos in order to share them through via Gmail on a computer. Along with that, you’ll also be able to share full albums and have the ability to resize images while composing a message.
The latest version of Picasa includes an additional bit of software called Google+ Auto Backup, as reported by Google Operating System. The new software can be used to automatically backup photos and videos from user-selected directories to your Google+ account. Interestingly, the app has nothing to do with the Picasa service, even though it ships exclusively with the Picasa app.
The app can save unlimited 2048px photos to your account, or upload full-quality versions at the expense of Google Drive space. It can also intelligently copy media from storage cards and other devices that are attached to the system. Furthermore, the app can be configured to backup all media to a designated location on the local hard drive, putting all of your backed-up media in one convenient place.
You can get the Google+ Auto Backup app by downloading the latest version of Picasa.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=uOFsYp7AtUs]
Google introduced photo tours today—a new feature of Google Maps that allows users to watch 3D photomontages of worldwide landmarks by virtue of user-contributed content.
The tours are now available for more than 15,000 locations, and they include popular tourist spots like Italy’s St. Mark’s Basilica or Yosemite’s Half Dome. The new feature is accessible when a user searches for a place, and then the left-hand panel will display any live photo tours. Just click the thumbnail or link to embark on the photo tour. Indications for photo tours also appear when browsing Google Maps. In this instance, just click a landmark’s label to find an available photo tour.
Spring is finally here, and Google announced it wants to clean house again with the seasonal change by killing a slue of products.
“Focus is crucial if we are to improve our execution. We have so many opportunities in front of us that without hard choices we risk doing too much and not having the impact we strive for,” explained Cloud Services Director Matthias Schwab on the Official Google Blog.
Here is a list of products being nixed:
Google last month announced that its software powering the Logitech Revue set-top box and Sony’s networked television sets (and soon Samsung’s) will be updated with Android 3.1 Honeycomb code and new features. Today, the first in a series of several software updates is rolling out to Google TV devices, bringing with it enhanced experience for YouTube and Photos apps.
Per the official blog post, the new YouTube app now lets you watch the videos you’ve subscribed to and access your playlists, favorites and the Watch Later queue. It is also possible to add videos to your own channel from your Google TV.
As for the Photos app, you get the new Discover feature, basically a pretty screen saver that animates a collage of all your photos sourced from your Picasa or Flickr accounts. Like the shuffle feature on the iPod shuffle, Discover is a great way to enjoy your long forgotten photos.
Sony’s Google TVs have already received this update, but it’s still pending for Logitech’s Revue box, which has yet to receive a Honeycomb firmware update.
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Today, we have found a few pictures taken by the upcoming Galaxy Nexus on Picasa. We’ve matched the EXIF data of both images with each other, and then with past leaks which seem to indicate that this is the Galaxy Nexus. The Galaxy Nexus’ camera has a resolution of 1944×2592 pixels, and matches the photos leaked a couple weeks ago of an Apple Store. Note, that the EXIF data of both images called this device the Galaxy Nexus, not the Nexus Prime.
The first image, as seen after the break, was posted by Picasa user Sammy Fte (Samsung FTE?). The EXIF data of the image matched perfectly and actually looks like a nice picture if you ask us. The resolution was only 1944×2595, only sizing in at about 5MP, a low megapixel camera in comparison to the 8MP camera seen in Samsung’s Galaxy S II and there may be a reason for this. A previous photo found with Galaxy Nexus EXIF data on Picasa had the same 5MP quality and it led us to believe that the camera is the same. We believe that this certain Picasa user is an employee of Samsung thanks to the name and other photos posted on the account.
As you can see after the break..
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What once used to send you to Picasa Web Albums, the “photos” link on Google’s navigation bar now sends you to Google+’s Photo service — Google Operating System discovered. Google+’s Photo service displays photos from your circles, from your Android phone, photo’s you’ve been tagged in, and your list of Picasa Web albums. Google+ Photos is still missing some editing features, album descriptions, and the ability to edit prints.
Don’t get this confused however, as Picasa is still available by manually typing in the URL. But, this seems for the best, right?
As we reported last week, Google is working on a photo sharing service called Photovine.
Photovine site is now live but not “open for business”. It doesn’t appear to be part of Google Plus though it will offer some “social network service integration”. It is also weird that the start page has an iPhone rather than a Nexus S and the like..
Google, who barely appear on the page at all, advertises the service:
Photovine is a community that’s about creating fun and unique collections of photos that we call Vines. In Photovine, vines connect you with people through the ideas and themes expressed in your photos. A vine is like a constantly growing family of photos connected through a common caption created by you, your friends, and people all over the world. Some examples of vines could be: “What Weekends Are Made Of”, “Secret Stuffed Animal”, “Party People”, or, “Love of My Life”. As people add photos to vines, they tell their own stories about the moments, images, and ideas that define our lives in a way that’s social, creative, and fun. Start a vine by taking a photo and creating a new caption, or add to an existing vine. Other people will see your vine and join in by adding their own photo, showing their own take on the caption.
More Q&A below:
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Mashable has learned that Google is planning to kill two of its biggest branded products and merge them into Google branded services in the next six weeks.
According to two sources familiar with the matter, Google intends to rename Picasa “Google Photos” and Blogger will become “Google Blogs.” Several other Google brands are likely to be affected, though our sources made it clear that YouTube would not be rebranded.
Mashable notes that the move isn’t without precedent – Grandcentral became Google Voice, Jotspot became Sites, etc. etc.
Blogger (co-founded by Evan Williams of Twitter) was acquired in 2003 and is one of the top 10 most visited websites in the world. Picasa is also a very popular service acquired in 2004.
Both services will likely be tied in with Google’s new Plus Social Network. It would be surprising to see Picnik survive as a separate product. ‘Google Photo Editor’ anyone?
