Tuesday, May 27, 2008 4:59 PM
From the start, we've designed Picasa Web Albums to be 'open' -- after all, your photographs belong to you, and you should be free to decide how to share them. For instance, if you'd like your albums to be downloadable, we make sure friends and family can grab your pictures at the full, original upload resolution, allowing them to print out great-looking photos at home. Of course, if you want to pay for professional prints, we also offer you a choice of print providers in both Picasa and Picasa Web Albums.
From a technical perspective, we offer a free and open API. In a nutshell, this makes it easy for other companies to build products that connect seamlessly with Picasa Web Albums, so you can do more with your photos.
Our team has seen some pretty cool product demos lately, and we're glad to see some of these Picasa-Web-Albums-enabled items are now making their way to store shelves. EyeFi, for one, announced a new generation of their wi-fi memory card, which not only lets any camera upload photos without being attached to a computer, but can also geotag your photos as you take them, adding location-based data that makes it even easier to put your photos on a map. (No dragging-and-dropping required!)
And if Panasonic's PZ850 Vieracast announcement at CES caught your eye, you might be interested to know that the official pricing on these Picasa and YouTube-enabled flat screen HDTVs has been announced: 46" for $3,100, 50" for $3,500, 59" for $4,300 and $8,000 for the 65 inch model. Head over to Gizmodo to see some video of the sets in action.
If you're an impulse shopper, we recommend you head straight to Tokyo and hunt down a Sony Canvas Online CP1 digital photo frame, which is currently available only in Japan. We were lucky enough to see this gorgeous wifi-enabled photo frame in person, and trust us, it's a beauty. Sitting stately atop a clear lucite base, this 7", 800x480 LCD frame can stream your favorite Picasa Web Albums directly from the internet.
