Google Photos Update: Suggested Sharing Introduced At I/O 2017 Keynote

Among many announcements at the I/O keynote Wednesday, Google showcased new features for its Photos platform. Photos has become an integral part of the Google ecosystem and the tech giant is further using machine learning to make its functions more seamless and predictable.

New to Google Photos is a suggested sharing feature, which will suggest to users photos they can share with friends and family. Many smartphone photographers intend to spend the amazing shots they take from various functions but never get around to it. Google Photos can now identify people in photos within the library and prompt notifications to users to share those photos. If there are several people in a photo, Google Photos can make a suggestion to send it to all of the photo's subjects.

Users can pool photos together with contacts who also have Google accounts in order to receive photos as well as sending photos. While users share their photos where friends are the subject, they can also get photos from friends where they are the subject.

Building on the suggested sharing idea, Google also showcased shared libraries, which allows users to connect with specific contacts to share photos. Users can set one or more contacts to have access to photos from the primary users' library to their own library. Google Photos will notify contacts when new photos from shared libraries contacts are backed up in their library. Users can also set which types of photos are sent to contacts' library by subject.

For example, if a husband and wife have a shared library of family photos, the wife can see in the library photos of the husband's day out with the kids, but not photos of the husband's night out with his friends.

Google also announced a new service called Photo Books, which allows users to select their best images to be printed into a booklet they and keep or gift. Photo Books is now available on Google Photos and will be available for Android and iOS devices next week.

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