TECH BREAK: Google Photos is more than just a gallery
A screen grab of the Google Photos logo. With Google Photos, your cherished memories will not only be stored forever but Google will help you ‘relive’ them. PHOTO | AUGUSTINE SANG
What you need to know:
- If your device falls short of storage, you can delete locally stored files to create more space and rest easy knowing that they are backed up.
As far as Artificial Intelligence (AI) goes, Google pretty much has a lot to show with its constantly developing Google Photos platform.
The app has evolved from a mere smartphone gallery to a complex AI machine capable of things we couldn’t think of just a few years back.
This is what the platform has to offer:
Free unlimited Backup
Google now offers users unlimited backup of photos and videos in HD Quality, available anytime across devices.
This means that if your device falls short of storage, you can delete locally stored files to create more space and rest easy knowing that they are backed up.
Assistant
This platform is able to "bring your photos to life", according to Google. It does this by automatically creating movies, photo collages, animations and even panoramas from your photos.
Furthermore, you can choose to select the images manually and it can help you liven up your photos by morphing them into the forms above. This makes it a quick editor.
‘JPG to Word’ with Google lens
Ever had to type out an entire document out of a printed copy? Tough, right?
With Google lens integration in Google Photos, you can simply snap a photo of the document and it would be able to instantly convert it into word format. In addition, you can use Google lens to identify plants, animals, landmarks and more in your photos.
Visual Search
The AI system in Google Photos is now able to help you search for photos simply by describing the things in them, with no tagging required.
For instance, if you are looking for a particular photo of your pet dog, you simply search ‘dog’ and the system will bring up the images of your dog. This feature can be very useful especially if you have thousands of images, which you probably do.
It is also capable of using facial recognition to search images better.
Rediscover your memories
With Google Photos, your cherished memories will not only be stored forever, but Google will help you ‘relive’ them by showing you photos you took a year ago on this day - perfect for #tbt.
It is pretty clear that Google Photos is more than just a ‘new photo gallery’ as Google puts it. It represents key advancements in AI and is worth a shot if you haven’t tried it.
