Today, I'm happy to announce that we're releasing Picasa 3.5, a new version of our free photo editing software. This version gives you the ability to add name tags to your photos, using the same facial recognition technology that powers name tags on Picasa Web Albums. Name tags are designed to help you organize your photos by what matters most: the people in them. Picasa identifies similar faces and puts these into an "Unnamed People" album. From there, you can easily add a name tag by clicking "Add a name" and typing the person's name. After you've added name tags to some photos, you can use your tags to do creative things, like quickly find all the photos with the same two people in them, make a face collage with just one click or upload and share people albums with friends.
In addition to name tags, Picasa 3.5 has integrated Google Maps, so you can easily geotag your photos or view the locations of already-tagged photos on a map. And using our totally redesigned import process, you can now import photos from your camera and upload the photos to Picasa Web Albums in one easy step.
Picasa 3.5 is available for both PC and Mac, in English for now. You can download and try it today at picasa.google.com.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Picasa 3.5, now with name tags and more
Google climate change tools for COP15
In December of this year, representatives from nations around the globe will gather in Copenhagen to discuss a global agreement on climate change. The objective is to reduce global warming emissions sufficiently in order to avoid the most severe impacts of climate change and to support the global community in adapting to the unavoidable changes ahead. Denmark will act as host for this fifteenth Conference of the Parties under the United Nations’ Climate Change Convention, known as COP15.
In collaboration with the Danish government and others, we are launching a series of Google Earth layers and tours to allow you to explore the potential impacts of climate change on our planet and the solutions for managing it. Working with data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), we show on Google Earth the range of expected temperature and precipitation changes under different global emissions scenarios that could occur throughout the century. Today we are unveiling our first climate tour on Google Earth: "Confronting Climate Change," with narration by Al Gore. Stay tuned for more tours in the coming weeks!
Together with the Danish government, we're also launching our YouTube COP15 channel. On the channel, you can submit your thoughts and questions on climate change to decision-makers and the world through an initiative called "Raise Your Voice." These videos will be broadcast on screens around the conference in December and rated by viewers of the channel. The top-rated contributions will be aired globally during the COP15 CNN/YouTube debate on December 15th, and the top two submissions will win a trip to Copenhagen. We look forward to seeing your videos!