Google today announced Google Photos, another attempt by the company to help people get a handle on their photos and videos. Google wants Photos to serve as users' central repository for all their photos and videos, make it easy to manage and edit them, and make it easy to share and save the photos that matter. The service will be available online and to mobile devices. Users can take advantage of pinch gestures to view days, weeks, months, or years. Everything is stored online in Google Drive. The service also automatically creates albums based on location and time stamps. Google strove to remove the work from keeping photos organized. Users can use people, places, and things to categorize images -- and all the tags are generated automatically and privately so only the user can see them. Google's image recognition is able to tag people consistently as they age over time. Photos also has powerful search tools, which allow users to find specific moments in time. The service supports albums, movies, storyboards, animations, soundtracks, and editing. Sharing functions make selecting multiple shots a cinch with a single gesture. Users can easily generate links to photo albums for sharing that don't require the recipient to have a specific app installed. Google Photos offers unlimited storage for full-resolution photos and 1080p HD videos for free. Google Photos is available beginning today for Android, iOS, and the web.


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