Google Will Launch Google Photos, a Photo Host With “Unlimited Storage”(techcrunch.com)
techcrunch.com
Google Will Launch Google Photos, a Photo Host With “Unlimited Storage”
http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/28/confirmed-google-will-launch-google-photos-a-standalone-photo-host-with-unlimited-storage/
22 comments
"Unlimited" until they retire the service 18 months from now.
Came here to say the same thing.
I've started not to trust Google as a cloud offering because of their continued shedding of services. Look at AWS - they add things they know will fill a need, often because that need is present at Amazon, and as such I can't recall them retiring any of their portfolio.
Google instead take a scattergun approach, which would be fine if they actually interated and improved these services, but look at the mess they made of Google Code - great at first, then no massive new features after a while and they left it to languish.
I've started not to trust Google as a cloud offering because of their continued shedding of services. Look at AWS - they add things they know will fill a need, often because that need is present at Amazon, and as such I can't recall them retiring any of their portfolio.
Google instead take a scattergun approach, which would be fine if they actually interated and improved these services, but look at the mess they made of Google Code - great at first, then no massive new features after a while and they left it to languish.
Simpledb is a AWS product the don't promote much these days (it is often left off the list of products). I wouldn't be surprised to see a notice that they are turning it off at some point however.
The big difference is that it has real revenue from customers whereas "free" services are a lot more prone to corporate fashion
The big difference is that it has real revenue from customers whereas "free" services are a lot more prone to corporate fashion
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Let's hypothesize for a minute, why a technology giant, like Google cares about user photos?
Their machine learning systems are unmatched. In order for machine learning to be more effective they need to be given context. What's the missing key for photos? People. What happens when you add in an authenticated Google user, who they already know everything about due to using other G services (mail, search, adwords) to that machine learning with photos?
My assumption would be they can simply learn more about you. Personalization is ad money, nothing more.
Their machine learning systems are unmatched. In order for machine learning to be more effective they need to be given context. What's the missing key for photos? People. What happens when you add in an authenticated Google user, who they already know everything about due to using other G services (mail, search, adwords) to that machine learning with photos?
My assumption would be they can simply learn more about you. Personalization is ad money, nothing more.
Yeah -- because when you provide a friendly, personal service for someone, you're doing it for the ad money and nothing else. Look, you have a point, but it's an extraordinarily cynical point. You're connecting the dots to reveal "the truth", that Google strives to make money, but it could honestly be a lot worse. Personalization is more than just ad money. It's friendly and great for business.
Wouldn't being friendly and great for business be providing customer support? Something that Google rarely, if ever, does?
Google is a product lab that happens to fund itself from its most successful experiment, ads.
Google is a product lab that happens to fund itself from its most successful experiment, ads.
I've contacted Google for customer support twice in the last couple of years, and both times they were excellent. First time was when I had an issue with my Nexus 5, spoke to a human got it sorted straight away. Second time was when they changed the VAT status on personal Google Apps accounts (here in the UK). I raised a live chat to query this and had a callback from a guy on the west coast within 20 minutes who seemed happy to take the time to walk me through what was happening and what it meant.
Maybe I was just lucky. shrug
I'm skeptical about this whole "Google doesn't do customer support" thing, especially given the internet's astonishing ability to amplify vocal minorities and some people's desire to jump on anything anti-guy-making-all-the-money.
Maybe I was just lucky. shrug
I'm skeptical about this whole "Google doesn't do customer support" thing, especially given the internet's astonishing ability to amplify vocal minorities and some people's desire to jump on anything anti-guy-making-all-the-money.
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The interesting interview[1] with Bradley Horowitz (Google's "VP of Streams, Photos, and Sharing") directly addresses that.
Obviously, machine learning will benefit Google. But it will also benefit all the users of this service, by improving the automated assistance of managing your photos (some of which is already pretty neat, like the automatic photo albums Google will sometimes make for you).
If you are not a photographer, and say, you have kids, you definitely don't have time to do that much curation of your photo archive. You might set aside some time time make a share a photo album after a major event like a birthday party or something, but you will never have enough time to manually derive all the enjoyment our of your photos that you could be getting. This problem needs smarter machines to solve it.
Relevant quote:
Obviously, machine learning will benefit Google. But it will also benefit all the users of this service, by improving the automated assistance of managing your photos (some of which is already pretty neat, like the automatic photo albums Google will sometimes make for you).
If you are not a photographer, and say, you have kids, you definitely don't have time to do that much curation of your photo archive. You might set aside some time time make a share a photo album after a major event like a birthday party or something, but you will never have enough time to manually derive all the enjoyment our of your photos that you could be getting. This problem needs smarter machines to solve it.
Relevant quote:
Q: You use artificial intelligence to surface photos on a given
theme, or find specific people in the photostream. What’s the
percentage of getting it right?
A: It’s good enough. It’s not perfect, in the same way that voice
transcription five years ago was not perfect. The key to getting
that last percentage which tips it over will come now, when we deploy
it at scale. Getting all that data will create a virtuous cycle of
getting better and better.
I see no need to theorize nefarious purposes. Every large web services company* has some kind of photo storage service. It drives users to their other products.
* Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, Yahoo, Dropbox, ...
* Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, Yahoo, Dropbox, ...
Sure they want to show ads, no question. But also the other perspective: The camera is likely one of the most often used mobile apps. Users create tons of pictures. For being a dominant mobile platform you need the accompanying photo "cloud" solution. If the offer this as part of their play services this is yet another benefit of Google-Android over OpenSource-Android versions (like Amazon fire)
Yeah, nothing is free, they will know everything about us.
It's going to be the social data source of google, like facebook comments, messages, events, friends, etc (which are also unlimited).
We are the data source for the ultimate ad targeting machine.
I'd hardly trust Google again for a service I'd have to rely on in the future. Let alone for a service that doesn't force Google+ down your throat today or tomorrow. Sorry, but Google Reader, Hangouts and Android have been too much already.
Just like with any product ever, if the product is popular and produces value, it will stick around. Products come and go all the time, the difference being with Google that since they are so big and have countless products, the company doesn't go away when a particular one fails. Many products fail in this world, but often the company that made the product also goes away, so you have no one to complain about going forward. Google is easy to pick on in this regard.
If this same product was released by a company you had never heard of, would you use it? Would you honestly believe it to have a greater chance of survival?
My suggestion is to simply judge this product on its merits, and accept that nothing is guaranteed, whether it's made by Google or not.
If this same product was released by a company you had never heard of, would you use it? Would you honestly believe it to have a greater chance of survival?
My suggestion is to simply judge this product on its merits, and accept that nothing is guaranteed, whether it's made by Google or not.
> if the product is popular and produces value, it will stick around.
I'm afraid there are more factors than this at play. Reader was both popular, and it produced value (to me and many others). I was never even given the option to pay for it. For whatever reason, Reader didn't fit Google's strategic vision... so it got axed.
I'm afraid there are more factors than this at play. Reader was both popular, and it produced value (to me and many others). I was never even given the option to pay for it. For whatever reason, Reader didn't fit Google's strategic vision... so it got axed.
I'm with you on Reader. Heartbreaking to lose that. Oh well, Feedly has been an acceptable replacement.
>If this same product was released by a company you had never heard of, would you use it? Would you honestly believe it to have a greater chance of survival?
>My suggestion is to simply judge this product on its merits, and accept that nothing is guaranteed, whether it's made by Google or not.
Maybe RMS was right and the answer is to stop using cloud services?
>My suggestion is to simply judge this product on its merits, and accept that nothing is guaranteed, whether it's made by Google or not.
Maybe RMS was right and the answer is to stop using cloud services?
> Products come and go all the time,
Yep, just what I want to hear when I'm uploading my 1000s of photos to that product...
Yep, just what I want to hear when I'm uploading my 1000s of photos to that product...
But with Google, you can have the reasonable expectation that if this product does go away, you'll have the chance to export your data.
Potentially.
Right now, I have more faith in a specialist small company (e.g. Smugmug [disclaimer, no affiliation]) which charges for their product than Google who offer it for free ... and then, not ... and then ... repackaged ... and then ... RIP.
Sorry, you must understand that there are now enough people out there who have been on the receiving end of Google's careless approach to their end-users (note, I intentionally did not refer to us as customers).
Announcements like this used to excite me. Not anymore. I hope one day things will be different.
[Edit: downvoted as expected. Feel free. Just come back and upvote when it's your turn to get on the Google support rollercoaster].
Right now, I have more faith in a specialist small company (e.g. Smugmug [disclaimer, no affiliation]) which charges for their product than Google who offer it for free ... and then, not ... and then ... repackaged ... and then ... RIP.
Sorry, you must understand that there are now enough people out there who have been on the receiving end of Google's careless approach to their end-users (note, I intentionally did not refer to us as customers).
Announcements like this used to excite me. Not anymore. I hope one day things will be different.
[Edit: downvoted as expected. Feel free. Just come back and upvote when it's your turn to get on the Google support rollercoaster].
Amazon's S3 has been around since March 2006, so almost 10 years. That's a much better place for anythinig you want to stick around than Google.
Amazon has my loyalty for the very specific reason that they don't release half-assed products and then pull them even when they have millions of users.
Amazon has my loyalty for the very specific reason that they don't release half-assed products and then pull them even when they have millions of users.
Since you mentioned it ...
rsync.net has been around since 2001 and, if you care about openness and interoperability[1], is an even better place for "anything you want to stick around".
Yes, more expensive, but the "HN readers discount" for new customers is currently 8 cents (vs. S3 @ 3 cents). Email us.
[1] http://www.rsync.net/resources/howto/remote_commands.html
rsync.net has been around since 2001 and, if you care about openness and interoperability[1], is an even better place for "anything you want to stick around".
Yes, more expensive, but the "HN readers discount" for new customers is currently 8 cents (vs. S3 @ 3 cents). Email us.
[1] http://www.rsync.net/resources/howto/remote_commands.html
What happened to Hangouts and Android? I know Reader was discontinued, but Google is hardly shutting down widely used services regularly. In fact, it's rare enough that, as with Reader, it is big news when it happens, and there's a huge backlash. This suggests, in fact, that there is actually an expectation that Google does and will keep products around for a long time, not the opposite.
People have a common tendency to extrapolate from low-N or even single events to produce an inaccurate picture of future possibilities. I'm quite happy with GMail, Drive, Android and so on, and don't expect them to vanish any time soon.
People have a common tendency to extrapolate from low-N or even single events to produce an inaccurate picture of future possibilities. I'm quite happy with GMail, Drive, Android and so on, and don't expect them to vanish any time soon.
Reader was discontinued, Hangouts has been sold as a replacement for GTalk with missing features (history, compatibility with xmpp…), Android is forcing you to use Google+ everyday more than before (and I really don't want to use it — I mean, really).
I'm still using GMail and Android, but I'm not happy with how their UI change, and with how the latter puts Google everywhere (it's a bit better with Cyanogen, but still).
Maybe I'm extrapolating, maybe not. The only thing I'm sure of, is that when trust has been lost, it's very hard to get it back.
I'm still using GMail and Android, but I'm not happy with how their UI change, and with how the latter puts Google everywhere (it's a bit better with Cyanogen, but still).
Maybe I'm extrapolating, maybe not. The only thing I'm sure of, is that when trust has been lost, it's very hard to get it back.
Can you elaborate why do you not "trust" Google?
You don't trust them to keep the Photos service operational in the future? But if the worst comes to the worst, in this theoretical scenario, at least they would surely provide you a way to transfer your files first. So why does it bother you so much?
Or you don't trust them to keep Photos independent of Google+? Surely they would never say "from now on you can't access your photos unless you sign up for Google+". Photos are very personal and important to people. This would cause an unprecedented outrage.
You don't trust them to keep the Photos service operational in the future? But if the worst comes to the worst, in this theoretical scenario, at least they would surely provide you a way to transfer your files first. So why does it bother you so much?
Or you don't trust them to keep Photos independent of Google+? Surely they would never say "from now on you can't access your photos unless you sign up for Google+". Photos are very personal and important to people. This would cause an unprecedented outrage.
I don't trust them to keep the service operational in the future if it doesn't get momentum (see Google Buzz, Google Wave…), if it doesn't bring enough money in (see Google Reader…) or if they finally give up against some competitor (see Google Code…).
I trust them even less to not put Google+ inside this, which for me is more or less the same thing as shutting the service down, since I really don't want to use Google+ (I mean, really), and I don't want people I share photos with to be forced to use it (I mean, really). You seem to be sure they wouldn't do this, I think the exact opposite. Well, future will tell us.
Now, you're right in that they have a excellent history of allowing their users to get their files back. This is something I definitely trust them and thank them for a million times. Now, a photo service isn't relevant without a sharing feature, and if the service is shutting down, no backup that I can think of backs the sharing up.
I trust them even less to not put Google+ inside this, which for me is more or less the same thing as shutting the service down, since I really don't want to use Google+ (I mean, really), and I don't want people I share photos with to be forced to use it (I mean, really). You seem to be sure they wouldn't do this, I think the exact opposite. Well, future will tell us.
Now, you're right in that they have a excellent history of allowing their users to get their files back. This is something I definitely trust them and thank them for a million times. Now, a photo service isn't relevant without a sharing feature, and if the service is shutting down, no backup that I can think of backs the sharing up.
As if you can trust other companies to keep running unpopular, unprofitable, and/or noncompetitive products.
Why do people harp on this for Google? /SMH
And as for "really don't want to use Google+", that's very much like saying "I really don't want to log in to Hacker News."
Yes. You have an account at Google that enables social interaction. That's all it is. Why people imbue it with some awful emotional connotations is really beyond me. It's a tool that has multiple uses, some of which you don't want to use... Got it. But some of which you might want to use.
Why do people harp on this for Google? /SMH
And as for "really don't want to use Google+", that's very much like saying "I really don't want to log in to Hacker News."
Yes. You have an account at Google that enables social interaction. That's all it is. Why people imbue it with some awful emotional connotations is really beyond me. It's a tool that has multiple uses, some of which you don't want to use... Got it. But some of which you might want to use.
Their abuse compliance team has yet to get back to me despite the fact that I gave them my driver's license. It's been like 3 months.
Google already have unlimited storage for photos, maybe they are just increasing the size of things that count to the free storage. From: https://support.google.com/picasa/answer/6558?hl=en
Keep in mind that photos up to 2048x2048 pixels and videos up to 15 minutes long won't count toward your storage limit.
Keep in mind that photos up to 2048x2048 pixels and videos up to 15 minutes long won't count toward your storage limit.
Yeah, I thought they already had this. For a while it was sort of half branded under Picasa and half under G+/Photos but I set it up last winter for my girlfriend's mom. She has a load of scanned photos and digital camera photos on her laptop but no backup plan. Since she didn't want to buy a NAS or subscribe to online backup, I set it up so imported photos were backed up to Google+/Photos. Same stipulations: resized (but still decent) photos wouldn't count toward any limit but original resolution would require her to pay for Google storage. She agreed that the free storage of resized images was a decent compromise. Chances are she won't need the backups but if her laptop's hard drive dies then at least she will have decent copies of all of her photos. For a free solution it wasn't a terrible deal. She's not a photographer or anything so the smaller (but again, still decent) images would suffice for the cost.
I think separation from Google+ will be the big thing.
I'm super psyched about this. Photos was easily my favorite part of Google+, but I was never comfortable having my entire phone connected to a public-only social network.
I never trusted photo backup from my phone to a public-only profile page. I understand that google respects privacy and tests their code well and doesn't auto-share photos, but the reality is I will never be comfortable with a public-only profile page directly connected to my cellphones camera with auto-upload.
I may be that tiny, tiny minority but I'm very psyched I'll be able to finally use some of the great tools without having to worry about the fact that my phone is being dumped into a public-only social network that "should" protect my privacy.
I never trusted photo backup from my phone to a public-only profile page. I understand that google respects privacy and tests their code well and doesn't auto-share photos, but the reality is I will never be comfortable with a public-only profile page directly connected to my cellphones camera with auto-upload.
I may be that tiny, tiny minority but I'm very psyched I'll be able to finally use some of the great tools without having to worry about the fact that my phone is being dumped into a public-only social network that "should" protect my privacy.
> Photos was easily my favorite part of Google+, but I was never comfortable having my entire phone connected to a public-only social network.
In what sense is G+ a "public-only social network"?
In what sense is G+ a "public-only social network"?
When you create a G+ profile, you explicitly must check a box that affirms that they are creating a publicly viewable profile for your account. That profile page will, no matter what, be a public internet page with no permission filter at all.
You can then subsequently lock down features ON that page, such as hiding work information, hiding photos, hiding this, hiding that, (in fact, each of the dozens and dozens of options must be individually hidden), but the net result of that work is a public page with very little info on it.
By proxy, I can set my Facebook page to "visible to friends only" and even if you have a hardlink, you'll receieve a "page does not exist" error when you view it without logged-in whitelist (friend list) approval to even know the page exists.
I was never OK with the idea that, essentially, my android device had a public web page. A direct link between my data and a public profile page that I had no ability to remove access to.
As evidence of this I made a dummy G+ for a mostly unused Google account I have. Even though I turned off all features and hid all sections and turned on all privacy settings, and have added 0 content, 0 customization, 0 demographic settings (completely and totally blank G+ profile, no posts, nothing), the G+ dummy profile has "715 views" in the past year.
I made a fake G+ with no data and as private as possible, and it has been accessed about 700 times a year. That's not "privacy" to me. It's forced-public, searchable, etc. The best you can do is have a public profile page that you mark "do not search" (but which will still be crawled because search engines often crawl then hide instead of ignore).
You can never have privacy on G+ like Facebook, where you have a private page that does not even resolve as an address to non-friends.
You can then subsequently lock down features ON that page, such as hiding work information, hiding photos, hiding this, hiding that, (in fact, each of the dozens and dozens of options must be individually hidden), but the net result of that work is a public page with very little info on it.
By proxy, I can set my Facebook page to "visible to friends only" and even if you have a hardlink, you'll receieve a "page does not exist" error when you view it without logged-in whitelist (friend list) approval to even know the page exists.
I was never OK with the idea that, essentially, my android device had a public web page. A direct link between my data and a public profile page that I had no ability to remove access to.
As evidence of this I made a dummy G+ for a mostly unused Google account I have. Even though I turned off all features and hid all sections and turned on all privacy settings, and have added 0 content, 0 customization, 0 demographic settings (completely and totally blank G+ profile, no posts, nothing), the G+ dummy profile has "715 views" in the past year.
I made a fake G+ with no data and as private as possible, and it has been accessed about 700 times a year. That's not "privacy" to me. It's forced-public, searchable, etc. The best you can do is have a public profile page that you mark "do not search" (but which will still be crawled because search engines often crawl then hide instead of ignore).
You can never have privacy on G+ like Facebook, where you have a private page that does not even resolve as an address to non-friends.
That's default-public, not public-only.
> I made a fake G+ with no data and as private as possible, and it has been accessed about 700 times a year. That's not "privacy" to me.
You didn't say what information was revealed on the profile. If it was completely blank, then how is that a privacy issue?
> I made a fake G+ with no data and as private as possible, and it has been accessed about 700 times a year. That's not "privacy" to me.
You didn't say what information was revealed on the profile. If it was completely blank, then how is that a privacy issue?
The information revealed was: forced real name and existence of page.
I do not want the existence of a profile to be known. I do not want social networks, search engines, and government organizations crawling and recording information from a profile page connected directly to my cellphone.
I explained this: on Facebook, if you click a link to my profile it will say "sorry this link is invalid".
If you click it on Google, despite my best attempts, it will say "Hey, this user exists, here is their full name, oh, they don't share anything else with you".
That's an invasion of my privacy, to me, to have a public page that resolves and identifies me against my will.
The fact that you're OK with 700 automated bots crawling a blank profile shows me that you don't respect your own information and data and are okay with literally dozens of organizations collecting personal information about you without your permission or knowledge. What do you think those 700 clicks are? People hitting a blank profile? They're bots, and they're data harvesters. The existence of a profile is great information to help build more complete profiles of me, my devices and accounts, and ultimately my browsing history, locations, purchasing histories, advertising history, etc.
I do not want the existence of a profile to be known. I do not want social networks, search engines, and government organizations crawling and recording information from a profile page connected directly to my cellphone.
I explained this: on Facebook, if you click a link to my profile it will say "sorry this link is invalid".
If you click it on Google, despite my best attempts, it will say "Hey, this user exists, here is their full name, oh, they don't share anything else with you".
That's an invasion of my privacy, to me, to have a public page that resolves and identifies me against my will.
The fact that you're OK with 700 automated bots crawling a blank profile shows me that you don't respect your own information and data and are okay with literally dozens of organizations collecting personal information about you without your permission or knowledge. What do you think those 700 clicks are? People hitting a blank profile? They're bots, and they're data harvesters. The existence of a profile is great information to help build more complete profiles of me, my devices and accounts, and ultimately my browsing history, locations, purchasing histories, advertising history, etc.
Your real name, apart from almost certainly not being unique, isn't private information anyway, so no privacy is being lost.
> The fact that you're OK with 700 automated bots crawling a blank profile shows me that you don't respect your own information and data and are okay with literally dozens of organizations collecting personal information about you without your permission or knowledge.
"blank profile" ... "personal information" -- this isn't even coherent.
> without your permission
They implicitly have my permission to crawl anything I allow to be public. That's what making something public means!
> The fact that you're OK with 700 automated bots crawling a blank profile shows me that you don't respect your own information and data and are okay with literally dozens of organizations collecting personal information about you without your permission or knowledge.
"blank profile" ... "personal information" -- this isn't even coherent.
> without your permission
They implicitly have my permission to crawl anything I allow to be public. That's what making something public means!
"Your real name, apart from almost certainly not being unique, isn't private information anyway, so no privacy is being lost."
Yes, privacy is being lost.
I broke it down very simply: a public facing, crawlable webpage with a real-name is different than a NON-EXISTENT LINK.
Do you understand the difference between a "This Page Does Not Exist" error, and a "Hey, this is the public profile for Real Name" page? Do you understand the difference between say "Google.com" and "lkskldjfklsdjsdf.com"? One being a public page, the other being a non-existent webpage that returns an error?
I am shocked that your view of privacy is so broken that you cannot see the difference between publically posting a page on the public internet, accessible to literally every human on earth, and a whitelisted access page that has a total of about 300 human beings who can see it.
Do you understand why accessible to 5,000,000,000 is different than 300?
Then you can begin to understand privacy.
Yes, privacy is being lost.
I broke it down very simply: a public facing, crawlable webpage with a real-name is different than a NON-EXISTENT LINK.
Do you understand the difference between a "This Page Does Not Exist" error, and a "Hey, this is the public profile for Real Name" page? Do you understand the difference between say "Google.com" and "lkskldjfklsdjsdf.com"? One being a public page, the other being a non-existent webpage that returns an error?
I am shocked that your view of privacy is so broken that you cannot see the difference between publically posting a page on the public internet, accessible to literally every human on earth, and a whitelisted access page that has a total of about 300 human beings who can see it.
Do you understand why accessible to 5,000,000,000 is different than 300?
Then you can begin to understand privacy.
TBH I much more like the OneDrive approach when photo sharing is unified with storage, and the photos can alternatively be organized into albums ('views' on the data).
Photos has Drive integration [0] since a couple of months ago so you're free to do exactly this.
[0] http://googledrive.blogspot.com/2015/03/photosindrive.html
[0] http://googledrive.blogspot.com/2015/03/photosindrive.html
So, Picasa w/unlimited storage? I'm not joking. It seems that's what it is.
I remember Picasa! That's how I got all my old photos on Google to begin with, after migrating from Flickr back in the day.
I don't know if many know this, but you can still use the Picasa website. You just need to add something to the URL, otherwise it redirects to google+:
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/myphotos?noredirect=1
I still use it to this day.
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/myphotos?noredirect=1
I still use it to this day.
Haha, cool, thank you.
It is even complete with a "New!" sidebar referencing a blog post from 2011... ;-)
It is even complete with a "New!" sidebar referencing a blog post from 2011... ;-)
Wonderful, thanks for the link!
Since the original thread on this vanished, questions (and applause) for any Googlers reading this:
- - - - -
EXCELLENT. Two questions:
1) If I've stored photos as 2000px on G+, will they automatically upgrade to full size if I upload my full-size photo library to GDrive?
2) Likewise, will auto-awesome creations from previous low-quality pictures be upgraded to higher resolution versions?
- - - - -
EXCELLENT. Two questions:
1) If I've stored photos as 2000px on G+, will they automatically upgrade to full size if I upload my full-size photo library to GDrive?
2) Likewise, will auto-awesome creations from previous low-quality pictures be upgraded to higher resolution versions?
Stupid question: if there exists an unlimited photo storage service and it supports a lossless format, couldn't people use it as universal storage by splitting their files under the size limit and adding whatever header info is necessary to make them into PNGs?
Google has some serious chops when it comes to image recognition and machine learning. Telling the difference between a photo of a car and a photo of a train is much more difficult that telling the difference between a real photo and some random file encoded as a photo.
Pretty sure it's like one afternoon's work for any google engineer to write some code to figure out when something like this is happening.
So people are just going to do this again? Hand over all of their photos in exchange for free storage? How far are we from a computer being able to determine what is going on in a picture, and then they can mine the things you've done.
> How far are we from a computer being able to determine what is going on in a picture?
http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2014/11/a-picture-is-wort...
http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2014/11/a-picture-is-wort...
>How far are we from a computer being able to determine what is going on in a picture
that's one of the selling points of the new google photos app.
that's one of the selling points of the new google photos app.
That and also, what's the UVP here? Why not Flickr if you're going to sell off your photos for storage? Even as a somewhat avid photographer with RAW files dating back to 2004 (25k photos) I'm no where near the 1TB storage that Flickr offers.
[deleted]
... until they decide they're bored with it and force you to migrate gigs of photos off the service before shutting it down. No thanks.
I use Google+ entirely for my photos. I pay $2/mo to have all my photos in full resolution. So this is good news!
I pay the same for my grandfathered Flickr Pro account. Flickr gives all accounts 1TB of storage. I'd rather have a limit than an "unlimited" Google service that'll disappear at any time.
It won't just "disappear". I think we can safely expect plenty (months) of notice.
I concede, disappear is the wrong word. "Prematurely sunset" fits their actions better.
This is why my data gets stored in S3, and not Google's nearline storage. I know S3 is going to be around several year from now. I have no such assurances from Google about any of the services they have "in beta".
"Fool me once..."
This is why my data gets stored in S3, and not Google's nearline storage. I know S3 is going to be around several year from now. I have no such assurances from Google about any of the services they have "in beta".
"Fool me once..."
I don't want Google's servers looking over my images and analyzing them. No thank you.
Then you can't put photos on the public web at all, right?
This is pretty much what I try to do. I avoid people taking photographs of me altogether or if they do, I request them to not put them on Facebook or anywhere on the Internet. It usually works if you ask kindly.
Well I choose what to put on the "public web". Unlimited photo storage means all your photos.
How would a user be forced to upload all of their photos? I have (allegedly) unlimited storage with Flickr, but I manually upload the photos that I choose.
They're not forced to, they're tempted to. And most people will. From the presentation, it looks like as soon as you take a photo it's uploaded and backed up on Google's servers.
So what happens if you, say, XORed the entire image with 0xA5A5A5A5 and then uploaded it?
Seems Flickr doesn't really examine the image, just the extension (.gif, .jpg, etc). I wonder what Google plans to do.
Seems Flickr doesn't really examine the image, just the extension (.gif, .jpg, etc). I wonder what Google plans to do.
Actually, it's unlimited for "high resolution" versions, not for the originals, which is sad. I guess I will stick with Carousel or Flickr.
I don't know about Flickr, but Dropbox Carousel costs me $100 per year for a 1TB (have about 0.5TB photos in it).
You can buy a similar amount of storage from Google for a similar amount, and it will store your originals. So only the free version is limited in this way.
You can buy a similar amount of storage from Google for a similar amount, and it will store your originals. So only the free version is limited in this way.
16MP limit means it's not much use for most recent DSLRs
Well, to me personally, it doesn't matter what the limit is - I just want to have the originals untouched, i.e. lossless storage.
They learned how to recognize a person as they age from an infant to a toddler! That's amazing and should be celebrated.
Then, it is time to convert the whole filesystem to an image file and mount it from Google.
Gmail was supposed to be "Unlimited Storage" too.. I like how that turned out..
I'm pretty sure 99ish percentile are much under the limit. So I think it turned out alright?
"alright" if you accept that they're just full of shit..
Have you actual run out of space in Gmail?
Yes I have, and so have multiple friends.. 15GB doesn't go far these days...
So yes.. I've spent the day deleting years of emails that I didn't intend to... thanks Google..
So yes.. I've spent the day deleting years of emails that I didn't intend to... thanks Google..
Why do you only have 15GB? I just looked and I have 100GB.
Why do you have 100GB? Are you sure you're not paying $1.99/mo for that?
The default for new accounts is 15GB. I've had my gmail account since 2004 and I "only" have 17GB (15GB + 2GB extra I got at some point for some kind of security bonus; perhaps enabling 2FA).
The default for new accounts is 15GB. I've had my gmail account since 2004 and I "only" have 17GB (15GB + 2GB extra I got at some point for some kind of security bonus; perhaps enabling 2FA).
since they merged the gmail storage space with the drive storage space, i'm sure a lot of people have run out. I'm nowhere near 15GB of gmail storage, but it's pretty easy to dump 15GB into drive.
The next step is unlimited storage in Drive.
Google already does this for educational customers.
Dropbox's business model will get blown up when this happens.
Google already does this for educational customers.
Dropbox's business model will get blown up when this happens.
It’s especially interesting when one considers that during the NoCaptcha® relaunch several months ago they said that their algorithms could, by now, read text and detect animals and people better than humans could.
It will all be properly announced within a couple of hours but somehow I can't stop myself reading these previews and leaks.
I'll be glad when they set Photos free from Google+. I hope they do something with Hangouts too.
I'll be glad when they set Photos free from Google+. I hope they do something with Hangouts too.
"Google wants you to upload all of your photos into their data mining machine"
I am thinking about turning this into a unlimited cloud storage.
No thanks. I'm trying to move away from being their product.
It would be interesting to know the computation they use to determine the monetary gain on being able to mine/scan all the information from the photos versus the cost of storing them.