Google is now offering a middle-of-the-road storage plan for users, unveiling a 5TB plan for $24.99, filling a major hole in the company’s storage offerings.
Google changed the terms of its Photos storage in late 2020, ending its free, unlimited storage option. Users looking to replace that option have been turning to Google One. Paid plans start at 100GB for $1.99, 200GB for $2.99, 2TB for $9.99 and 10TB for $49.99.
The new option, first spotted by 9to5Google offers users a potential Goldilocks plan, offering a decent amount of storage at that ‘just right’ price.
Google has made a subtle change to how Photos backups work, excluding images received via social media and messaging apps.
Until now, Google Photos has automatically backed up folders created by Messages, WhatsApp, Kik and other messaging platforms. Google is making the change to help conserve internet resources.
“People are sharing more photos and videos due to COVID-19,” reads a statement on the Google Photos Help site. “To save internet resources, backup & sync has been turned off for device folders created by messaging apps like WhatsApp, Messages, and Kik. You can change this anytime in settings.”
As the statement says, the feature can be re-enabled for users that want all their photos backed up. Once the strain on the internet is alleviated, the company will likely turn it back on for all users.
Facebook is testing a new tool that will make it easier for users to move their images and photos to other platforms, according to a report on SFGate. Facebook has come under increasing scrutiny by lawmakers and regulators for how it handles user data.
According to the report, “U.S. and European regulators have been examining Facebook’s control of personal data such as images as they look into whether the tech giant’s dominance is stifling competition and limiting choice for consumers. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has reacted by calling for new rules to address ‘data portability’ and other issues.
“Facebook said that as it worked on a new set of data portability tools, it had discussions with policymakers, regulators, and academics in the U.K., Germany, Brazil and Singapore to learn about which data should be portable and how to protect privacy.”
The new tool will allow users to migrate data to Google Photos first, with other services to come later. The tool will be available in Ireland first, tweaked based on feedback and then rolled out to users worldwide in the first half of 2020.
Google Photos has proven quite popular since Google dropped the Google+ element and created it as a standalone app. Much of the cool factor was already there as the Google+ incarnation. This includes things like “auto-awesome,” which automatically enhance photos in different ways, and instant upload.
Now, Google Photos is getting smarter albums.
“Starting today, after an event or trip, Google Photos will suggest a new album for you, curated with just your best shots,” explains product manager Francois de Halleux. “It’ll also add maps to show how far you traveled and location pins to remember where you went—because it’s not always easy to recall the late-night diner you hit on your road trip, or which campsite you pitched the tent in when arriving after dark.”
“You can add text captions to the album to describe the view from the small hill huge mountain you climbed, and turn on collaboration to let others add their own photos,” he adds. “Or if you want to create one yourself, any existing album can now be customized with maps, location pins, and text. Voilà: You have a beautiful album ready to share.”
The new albums are rolling out on Android, iOS, and the web starting today.
Google announced on Friday that it will be retiring Picasa over the coming months as it commits its focus to Google Photos. Perhaps the only thing surprising about this is that it hasn’t already happened.
“We believe we can create a much better experience by focusing on one service that provides more functionality and works across mobile and desktop, rather than divide our efforts across two different products,” says Head of Google Photos Anil Sabharwal. “We know for many of you, a great deal of care has gone into managing your photos and videos using Picasa—including the hours you’ve invested and the most precious moments you’ve trusted us with. So we will take some time in order to do this right and provide you with options and easy ways to access your content. We’ve outlined below some of the changes you can expect.”
“If you have photos or videos in a Picasa Web Album today, the easiest way to still access, modify and share most of that content is to log in to Google Photos, and all your photos and videos will already be there. Using Google Photos, you can continue to upload and organize your memories, as well as enjoy other great benefits like better ways to search and share your images,” Sabharwal adds. “However, for those of you who don’t want to use Google Photos or who still want to be able to view specific content, such as tags, captions or comments, we will be creating a new place for you to access your Picasa Web Albums data. That way, you will still be able to view, download, or delete your Picasa Web Albums, you just won’t be able to create, organize or edit albums (you would now do this in Google Photos).”
The changes will go into effect on May 1. Picasa Web Albums can be used in the meantime.
On March 15, the Picasa desktop app will no longer be supported.
On May 1, Google will roll out changes to the Picasa Web Albums Data API and no longer support Flash, community search, mutation operations other than uploads, or tags, comments, or contacts. More on the API changes here.
Back in September, Apple unveiled its latest iPhone models – the 6s and 6s Plus – along with a new feature called Live Photos, which show several seconds of live video for each photo taken.
The new phones have a new gesture called 3D touch, which you can use to press on a photo you took to get the live action. They can have sound.
The user just takes a photo like normal and uses what Apple refers to as “efficient frame-to-frame technology” to “extend the captured moment”. In other words, video (though Apple says it’s not video). But still, it’s kind of cool to see photos automatically come with a few seconds of video.
The company said at the time that Facebook would support the feature, and that support is now coming to fruition, at least for some users. TechCrunch reports:
Starting with an update hitting this morning, Facebook is rolling out the ability to upload and view Live Photos from within their iOS app.
One catch: because Live Photos are still fairly new, Facebook isn’t pushing support out to everyone at once. While some people will see them start popping up in their feeds as early as this morning, many won’t see them until the new year.
Tumblr also recently added support for Live Photos.
Twitter announced a new photo experience for Twitter.com, making users’ timelines “more immersive” by uncropping photos, enabling people to see them as they were meant to be seen.
Historically, Twitter has cropped images to fit a certain size, but now users will be able to see the whole thing automatically, without having to click. Here’s the before and after:
There are also new multi-photo displays:
“While Twitter began as an all-text platform, rich media has become essential to the experience,” says Twitter product manager Akarshan Kumar. “Some of the best moments on Twitter are when you see the world through someone else’s eyes. Astronaut Scott Kelly’s awe-inspiring #YearInSpace, actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus onstage at the Emmys, Brian Dickinson’s solo summit of Mt. Everest — these photos bring us right into the moment.”
“This is why we’re constantly refining Twitter’s media experience — for example, we launched autoplaying video earlier this year, and designed Moments around visual media,” Kumar added, going on to point to the new photo features as the latest example.
Twitter continues to survey users about its user experience as it struggles to grow its membership.
Boomerang is a new app from Instagram that lets you capture quick video loops, or as the company puts it, “turn everyday moments into something fun and unexpected.”
Shockingly, the app is immediately available for both iOS and Android rather than one or the other. This is always nice in a new product launch, yet still all too uncommon.
“Capture a friend jumping off a diving board, defying physics as she flies back and forth through the air,” Instagram says in a blog post. “Transform an ordinary selfie with your friends into a funny video. Get that exact moment your friend blows out his birthday candles, then watch them come back to life again and again.”
“Press a button and the app does the rest,” the company explains. “Boomerang takes a burst of photos and stitches them together into a high-quality mini video that plays forward and backward. Shoot in portrait or landscape. Share it on Instagram. Boomerang automatically saves it to your camera roll. We’re inspired by the visual stories you tell on Instagram. With looping videos and Hyperlapse, you experiment with motion in new and exciting ways. Now, with Boomerang, we can’t wait to see what you’ll create next.”
The videos don’t appear in a feed within the Boomerang app itself, but can be shared to other places, such as Facebook and Instagram itself.
The product is fairly reminiscent of Google’s auto-awesome feature that stitches together photos to make animated gif-like quick-videos or the Live Photos feature Apple recently announced.
It shouldn’t be long before we start seeing brands get in on the fun.
Yelp announced a new way to browse photos – by category. You can now browse by things like food, interior, outside, drink, and menu.
The feature comes as the company has been experimenting with using neural networks to learn more about the content in user photos.
“Each photo a Yelp community member takes provides meaningful information to other people, but sometimes the exact photo you need gets buried under several screenfulls of other photos (I’m looking at you Food),” says product manager Frances Haugen.
You can utilize the feature by clicking “See all photos” as pictured above. It will show you a grid of images for different categories.
For now, it’s just an experiment with restaurants, but the company says it will be looking for other categories of businesses that make sense for the feature. It also wants users to tweet category suggestions at them.
The company notes that users might find photos that are in the wrong category. You can flag these, and tell Yelp they were in the wrong one.
Instagram photos are square. That’s just how Instagram has always been. Has it been annoying for many users? Absolutely. If you want to share a wider or taller photo on Instagram, often the only option is to create a letterbox image in a third-party app. It isn’t ideal, but it’s what people have to do to make sure the entirety of their photos are seen.
Well, not anymore. Now, in it’s about damn time news, Instagram is going to support landscape and portrait photos.
“Square format has been and always will be part of who we are. That said, the visual story you’re trying to tell should always come first, and we want to make it simple and fun for you to share moments just the way you want to,” says Instagram. “It turns out that nearly one in five photos or videos people post aren’t in the square format, and we know that it hasn’t been easy to share this type of content on Instagram: friends get cut out of group shots, the subject of your video feels cramped and you can’t capture the Golden Gate Bridge from end to end.”
Both photos and videos can now be oriented to landscape, portrait, or regular old square mode. No letterbox borders – just full-sized end-to-end photos.
Yes, this will change the overall look of your Instagram feed. If you’re a square purist, well, get on with the times, man.
Today’s update also adds the ability to adjust the intensity of video filters, and normalizes all filters for both photos and videos.
A couple of months ago, Facebook updated its photo uploader on its iOS apps to allow users to easily add stickers, filters, and text.
Now, it’s pushing that functionality to the web.
When you upload a new photo on the desktop version of Facebook, you’ll now see a new paintbrush icon next to the tag icon. Clicking on that will take you to a barebones photo editor.
From there, you can add text, crop, apply a handful of filters, and add tons of stickers.
The popularity of apps like Snapchat, where sticker-adding is basically required, is clearly influencing Facebook. People upload millions upon millions of photos each day on the site, and this is just another way to encourage more content.
It appears to be rolling out right now. So check for the paintbrush icon the next time you upload a photo.
If you purchased an iPhone 6 Plus between September of last year and January of this year, there’s a small chance your back camera is a little screwed up.
According to Apple, a “failed component” makes some back cameras on the model take blurry photos.
If you’ve noticed inexplicable blurriness to some of your shots, and your device falls within this subset, Apple will replace your camera for you.
“Apple has determined that, in a small percentage of iPhone 6 Plus devices, the iSight camera has a component that may fail causing your photos to look blurry. The affected units fall into a limited serial number range and were sold primarily between September 2014 and January 2015,” says the company on a new help page.
“If your iPhone 6 Plus is producing blurry photos and falls into the eligible serial number range, Apple will replace your device’s iSight camera, free of charge.”
You can check your serial number here to see if you qualify.
Do note that your phone needs to be in good enough shape for Apple to be able to replace the camera.
“If your iPhone 6 Plus has any damage such as a cracked screen which impairs the camera replacement, that issue will need to be resolved prior to service. In some cases, there may be a cost associated with the repair,” says the company.
Have you logged on to Twitter.com today? If so, you were probably greeted with a much whiter background than you remember setting.
That’s because Twitter has decided to remove your custom backgrounds from your home page and notifications page.
Here’s a statement the company:
We’re removing background images from the home and notifications timelines on web for all users. Now, background images are only available where logged-in users will see them publicly (Tweet pages, list pages and collections pages). You can find help center content about customizing your design and where it’s visible on Twitter here.
So you will see your backgrounds on some pages, but not the ones you visit the most.
If you go to your settings and change your background to another color other than last-day-of-winter-thigh white, it’ll work. You can turn your home page background back to what it was (custom of solid color). But navigate away from the site and you’ll see white when you return.
Maybe Twitter just thinks your custom backgrounds are ugly. To be fair, they probably were. Maybe it’ll change its mind and bring back custom backgrounds eventually. Maybe Twitter is looking for a clean slate to place ads.
Considering Twitter’s recent money struggles, I’d go with the latter.
This isn’t a shocker – we knew this was coming eventually. But Google has just set a kill date for Google+ Photos.
Google will begin to shut down the photo feature inside its struggling social network on August 1st. The death will happen first on Android and then soon after on the web and iOS.
Google unveiled its new Google Photos app at its I/) conference in May – which simply takes all the best part of Google+ Photos and strips the “plus” out. Since then, we knew Google+ Photos weren’t long for this world.
Google says you should start making the switch now.
“If you’re still using Google+ Photos, now is a great time to make the switch. You may have seen a prompt in Google+ Photos on Android with a link to download the new Google Photos. Don’t worry, all your photos and videos will still be saved and available after you switch to the new, stand-alone Google Photos app. With the new app you’ll still be able to backup, edit, and share your photos and videos, with unlimited storage, automatic organization, and more.”
Photos were always one of the best parts of Google+, but Google is doing what it can to turn Plus into something useful. Google says it wants Plus to be about connecting people with shared interests through its various communities – and photos just aren’t a part of this new direction.
And for those who just love Google’s photo editing and organizational tools, Google Photos takes the annoying Google+ aspect out of the picture. Let’s frame this as a win-win.
If you thought you looked cool wearing Google Glass before, wait till you see this.
Google has been awarded a patent that allows “a computing device, such as a head-mountable device (HMD), to capture and process images in response to a user placing their hands in, and then withdrawing their hands from, a frame formation”
In other words, Google wants you to be able snap pictures with Google Glass by doing that little frame thing with your fingers.
Embodiments described herein may help a computing device, such as a head-mountable device (HMD), to capture and process images in response to a user placing their hands in, and then withdrawing their hands from, a frame formation. For example, an HMD may analyze image data from a point-of-view camera on the HMD, and detect when a wearer holds their hands in front of their face to frame a subject in the wearer’s field of view. Further, the HMD may detect when the wearer withdraws their hands from such a frame formation and responsively capture an image. Further, the HMD may determine a selection area that is being framed, within the wearer’s field of view, by the frame formation. The HMD may then process the captured image based on the frame formation, such as by cropping, white-balancing, and/or adjusting exposure.
Google isn’t limiting the cool gestures to finger frames. The company wants users to be able to take different-shaped photos by framing in different ways – make a rectangle frame and take a rectangular picture, or make a circle with your fingers and take a circular picture, and so on and so forth.
More or less awkward than saying “OK Glass, take a picture” on the subway? You be the judge.
Of course, this is just a patent. There’s no way to know if this will actually make it into the next generation of Google Glass – but it does show Google’s thought process.
After 40 years of surreptitiously snapping photos of the White House during public tours, people can now do it out in the open.
The White House has lifted its ban on taking photos during tours of the Presidential mansion. Not only that, but it’s now encouraging people to do so and to share the photos across social media using the #WhiteHouseTour hashtag.
“Big news! Starting today, we’re lifting the ban on cameras and photos on the White House public tour. Visitors are now able to take photos and keep those memories for a lifetime!” said First Lady Michelle Obama in an Instagram post.
A video posted by First Lady Michelle Obama (@michelleobama) on
So, you can now take selfies at the White House. Just don’t bring your selfie stick, however. That’s still banned. Tripods, videos cameras, and flash photography are also banned.
Last year, the White House got pretty pissed at Samsung and Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz when the selfie he snapped with President Obama turned out to be a marketing ploy.
At Google I/O on Thursday, Google unveiled its new Google Photos app, which removes what little friction its old one may have had (by untying it from Google+) and giving users unlimited storage to store a “lifetime” of photos and videos.
As with the existing app, photos are automatically backed up and synced.
“And when we say a lifetime of memories, we really mean it,” says head of Google Photos Anil Sabharwal. “With Google Photos, you can now backup and store unlimited, high-quality photos and videos, for free. We maintain the original resolution up to 16MP for photos, and 1080p high-definition for videos, and store compressed versions of the photos and videos in beautiful, print-quality resolution.”
“Google Photos automatically organizes your memories by the people, places, and things that matter,” Sabharwal adds. “You don’t have to tag or label any of them, and you don’t need to laboriously create albums. When you want to find a particular shot, with a simple search you can instantly find any photo—whether it’s your dog, your daughter’s birthday party, or your favorite beach in Santa Barbara. And all of this auto-grouping is private, for your eyes only.”
Of course the app comes with photo enhancement features and lets you create collages, animations, movies with soundtracks, etc. There’s also an assistant view, which will suggest new things made with your photos and videos (like collages or stories based on recent trips) not unlike some of the features Google’s current Photos app provides.
You can share photos using the service of your choice, and can even share sets of photos or entire albums.
From the looks of it, the new app takes the best of the Google+ photos experience and completely removes the + from the equation, while giving users an all around nice photo storage and sharing solution.
The app will be available today on Android, iOS, and the web.
If Google+ has seen any sort of enthusiasm over the past couple of years, it’s thanks to photos. Google+ has some nice photo features, but there’s a problem – it’s all tied to Google+. The social network aspect of Google+ hasn’t been the most successful venture in the company’s history, to say the least.
More evidence of that comes today, as Bloomberg reports that Google is poised to reveal its standalone photo sharing and storing service. According to sources, Google will unveil it at the Google I/O developers conference.
According to Bloomberg, Google’s new photo service will play nice with popular social networks and easily let users share photos to Facebook and Twitter.
This isn’t the first time we’ve heard this. Last fall, reports said that Google wanted to spin off its photo service and free it from the ties of Google+. Of course, any new Google photo service will still work with Google+ – but it would also allow people who aren’t too keen on the social networking aspects of Google+ to share and store photos.
In March, Google’s Sundar Pichai pretty much confirmed that Google wants to separate Photos from Google+.
Google Photos head Bradley Horowitz also referenced that change was on the horizon.
“Just wanted to confirm that the rumors are true — I’m excited to be running Google’s Photos and Streams products! It’s important to me that these changes are properly understood to be positive improvements to both our products and how they reach users,” he said in a March Google+ post.
Here’s an interesting story of a Facebook rep not quite understanding the company’s policies (or understanding them perfectly … muahahahaha).
After months of issues, while once again trying to get the Facebook page for her website restored, the blogger behind online photo theft-tracking site Photo Stealers received a rather interesting response from a Facebook sales rep.
“…once something is posted or uploaded onto Facebook it becomes Facebook’s property. So if the original photographer uploaded the photo first onto Facebook and then others have taken it from there and uploaded it to their pages or profiles, this is legal and within policy, there’s nothing I can do about it unfortunately even if they are taking credit for the photos,” said the rep.
Of course, this was a pretty shocking thing to hear Facebook admit. Facebook’s Terms of Service specifically states that “You own all of the content and information you post on Facebook, and you can control how it is shared through your privacy and application settings.” Facebook has been fighting off rumors and hoaxes about this very issue for years.
So, this was pretty big news.
Except it wound up being a case of someone getting their wires crossed.
Facebook quickly responded to the Photo Stealers story, saying that the rep had it wrong.
“The information given in these emails is incorrect. Our terms are clear that you own the content you share on Facebook, including photos. When you post something, you simply grant Facebook a license to use that content consistent with our terms, including displaying it to the audience you’ve shared it with,” said another Facebook spokesperson.
“In addition, we prohibit people from posting content that violates someone else’s intellectual property rights. If a rights owner believes that content on Facebook violates their rights, they may report it to us. Upon notice, we stand ready to respond including by removing the content from Facebook.”
What Facebook can do it use your name, likeness, check-ins, and activity in ads. It can’t take your photos and use them as they see fit. Other people sure can, and your only method of recourse is to report the photo as IP theft. Hopefully, Facebook will be able to rectify the situation. Hopefully.
