Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

I just hate goodbyes. And I especially hate it when I have to say goodbye to something that has been dear to me even for just a while. But sadly, Google doesn’t seem to be planning on taking back its announcement regarding the shutdown of Picasa’s photo sharing service, Hello. On Hello’s home page, all you will be able to find now is this: “Hello will be shut down on May 15th.” Followed by a short and optimistic message from the Hello Team. In case you’re not familiar with Hello, you can find a copy of their old home page here, and a copy of their “how it works” page here. Well, there goes another startup, I guess.

Read [Hello] Via [Google Blogoscoped]

Panasonic has launched the Lumix TZ50 digital camera in the US market, and as speculated when it was released in Japan last month, the camera will support direct photo uploads to Google’s Picasa web albums. Unfortunately, there is no support for direct upload to Yahoo’s Flickr site. But the the US release of the camera still sports the same features we mentioned in our coverage for its Japanese release. This include a 9.1-megapixel CCD, 28mm wide-angle lens, 10x optical zoom, HD video support, and Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g connectivity.

MORE »

Popular social networking site Facebook has introduced a new feature that will allow it’s users to share content from other sites via their Mini-Feed, which sends it to the News Feeds of their friends. Users can import stories, albums, and other content from such sites as Flickr, Yelp, Picasa, and del.icio.us. This latest feature is yet another way for users to share information with each other easily and quickly. All they have to do is click the “Import” link at the top of their Mini-Feed. The site promises it will be adding even more sites, including Digg, in the near future.

Read [Facebook Blog]

Windows Mobile 6 touchscreen device owners have a new reason to get excited. Google has announced that Picasa Web Albums just got a major update that offers a specially-optimized mobile interface for WinMo touchscreen devices. Now you can view slideshows, community photos, and all of the other nice mobile features of Picasa, all on a mobile interface that’s designed to take advantage of the browser in Windows Mobile 6, according to Google. And what’s more, you can now view your photos offline, courtesy of course of the ubiquitous Google Gears for mobile, which allows your photo collection to be copied on your local device so you can view them any time, anywhere. Another nifty new feature is the ability to add a Picasa icon to your Program Files folder, which will grant you instant access to your favorite photos offline or online. Ready to take a tour of the new Picasa Web Albums? Simply log on to http://picasaweb.google.com to get started.

Read [Google Photos Blog]

Let’s say you happily use Linux, but you sometimes find yourself wishing you had access to interesting new apps that launch for Windows but not Linux. And maybe, like a lot of us, you have a lot of photos stored on your personal machine, and you’ve read about or even tried Google’s photo organizer, Picasa. But using it means switching to Windows, even temporarily. We know--thanks but no thanks.

Well, we’ve got you covered, because Google launches launched Picasa for Linux on Google Labs. It incorporates nearly all the features of the current Windows version of Picasa, providing you with the tools you need to easily find, edit, and share the photos on your computer. And because it runs on a carefully tested version of Wine, Picasa avoids the slowing effects of an OS emulation or a virtual machine.

Via [Google Blog]