picasa

Revamped Google Picasa site identifies photo faces

Google wants to help you put a name to that face.

With a face recognition feature set to launch at noon PDT Tuesday, Google's Picasa Web Albums will help users label their photos with the names of subjects. That and other changes to the photo-sharing site are joined by a new beta version of the accompanying Picasa 3.0 photo-editing software.

The "name tag" feature presents users with collections of photos with what it judges to be the same person, then lets them click a button to affix a name. Once photographic subjects are named, users can … Read more

Will Picasa become Google Photos?

There are signs Picasa Web Albums could be renamed Google Photos.

Google Operating System noticed several references to the term in the code that powers the Web site.

Among the examples: "This photo will be available to view and share in Google Photos, Google's free photo hosting service." And: "By submitting this form, you're alerting the Google Photos team to inappropriate content on this page."

Poring through a source code may sound like a dodgy way to predict the future, but programming code snippets can be revealing. Some wording in the Apple iPhone developer kit … Read more

Viera Cast first impressions: Panasonic's version of WebTV

Watch your latest YouTube creation, show the photo album of your trip to Thailand, and then check in to see how far your Yahoo stock has tanked--all without leaving your couch or using an external box (e.g. Apple TV). That's Panasonic's new Viera Cast system in a nutshell--just don't expect an ideal experience with this first generation technology.

Available on the high-end TH-46PZ850U and TH-50PZ850U plasma televisions, Panasonic's Viera Cast system isn't exactly the first of its kind--Sony's Bravia Internet Link and HP's MediaSmart TVs, and Samsung's A650 line all offer … Read more

Panasonic plasma TV streams YouTube, accesses Picasa photos

We detailed Panasonic's full plasma lineup earlier this year, but having just returned from a press event devoted to the flagship TH-PZ850U series, it feels incumbent to reiterate some of the cool new features of these expensive sets.

The coolest? A demo at the event proved that the 850Us can stream YouTube videos, right on the TV screen with no PC required. The TV's "Viera Cast" interface allows you to search YouTube by keyword, sort videos by popularity, or access your own list of favorite videos, for example. During the demo we were treated to a video of a laughing baby, the (no-surprise) current champ of the popularity list. According to Panasonic, the entire catalog of YouTube videos is available on the TV, although it may take a day or two for a new one on the site to appear on Viera Cast. The TV can also access Picasa, Google's photo sharing site, so you can view digital photos stored at your (or someone else's) Picasa account directly on the big screen.

… Read more

Google waves sayonara to Hello

Google has announced the shutdown of Hello, a sort of photo-messaging service that became part of the Mountain View family when Google acquired Picasa in 2004.

"All good things come to an end," a placeholder on the Hello.com home page says. "So it is with sadness that we say goodbye to Hello." Guess they weren't so sad that they felt the need to steer clear of goofy plays on words. Hello will fade away on May 15, though Google's photo-sharing service Picasa remains otherwise intact.

"We originally embarked on a mission to … Read more

Webware 100 winner: Picasa Web Albums

Picasa Web Albums is Google's Web photo hosting service. Users get 1GB of free hosting, and images can be uploaded and manipulated using Picasa, Google's free desktop photo management application. Users who want additional storage can shell out up to $500 a year to bump up the hosted space to 400 times the size of the free hosting service.

We really like the integration between the desktop and Web application. Like .Mac and iPhoto, Picasa makes it really simple to take photos from your desktop and publish them online for others to see. We're also fans of … Read more

Facebook mini-feeds get hungrier: Yelp, Picasa, Flickr, Delicious

This post was updated at 2:54 PM PT with comment from Facebook.

Facebook members now have the options to import their activity from a number of external social-media sites into the "Mini-Feeds" on their profiles, a post on the company blog explained on Tuesday.

Currently, this is limited to business reviews site Yelp, bookmarking site Delicious (owned by Yahoo), and photo-sharing sites Flickr (also owned by Yahoo) and Picasa (owned by Google). More are on the way, including Digg, the post by engineer Harry Huai Wang assured members.

With aggregation the hottest topic in social networking these … Read more

CNET Live - Episode 47

Brian Cooley usually rails against social networks, but hasn't dumped LinkedIn yet. Brian sits down with LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman to discuss why.

Watch the show on CNET TV.

Things we Crave

Heated touch screen from Glacier

Ford's concept Taxi

First Look

Guitar Rig 3

Download of the Week

XChat.

Insider Secrets Run Ubuntu Linux on a USB drive Your calls

Turn any number into Hex.

Share pictures from iPhoto with Picasa.

DVD drive won't play CDs but will play DVDs. Forum threads.

Google API makes it easier to share photos

Adobe Systems is getting all of the attention today in the digital photo world with the launch of Photoshop Express. Google, meanwhile, continues to add features to Picasa, Adobe's main online rival.

Google has released a new application programming interface (API) for Picasa that makes it easier to transfer pictures from Picasa to other applications, both online and offline.

Developers can use the Picasa Button API to make custom buttons that can open image files in local applications and upload selected image files to the Web via Google's Picasa Web Uploader service.

"Using the web uploader, you … Read more