Tag: google photos

In case you missed it, Moments, Facebook’s proprietary photo-sharing tool, will be shut down for good on February 25, 2019. Moments was created in 2015 as a means for Facebook users to privately share photos outside the social media website.

“Syncing photos with the Moments app is a private way to give photos to friends and get the photos you didn’t take,” reads the app’s press release. “Moments groups the photos on your phone based on when they were taken and, using facial recognition technology, which friends are in them. You can then privately sync those photos quickly and easily with the specific friends, and they can choose to sync their photos with you as well.”

Moments by Facebook

If you don’t know what the app is all about, don’t worry—we’re not very familiar with it either. In fact, Facebook is pulling the plug because of low download numbers. From a high of 10.7 million downloads in June 2016, the app’s adoption rate plummeted to around 150,000 in December 2018—an unacceptable rate for the social media conglomerate.

If you’re an avid user of Moments, there are other apps you can use to store and share your favorite photos in a secure manner. Here are three of them.

Google Photos

Google Photos is a photo-sharing service developed by—you guessed it—Google in 2015. It gives Google users 30 GB of free storage, with the option to pay extra for up to 30 TB of space (that’s a LOT of pictures). Google Photos uses facial recognition and machine learning to identify the subjects in your images and automatically sort them into smart albums, letting you navigate your collection of memories with greater ease.

Nixplay

If you’re here, chances are you have a Nixplay frame. And while our smart frames are amazing, did you know that our app is pretty neat, too?

The Nixplay app works with Google Photos, Instagram, Dropbox, Facebook, Amazon Alexa, and Flickr, letting you display your images wherever they may be. Nixplay Frames have 8 GB internal storage, which you can fill up with hundreds of your favorite pictures. Display your chosen photos on your frame by creating playlists, and share them with your loved ones with a few clicks. Easy, right?

SmugMug

SmugMug was born from its photographer founders’ dream of having a suitable channel for their work. “Photographers needed a place online that was tailor-made for them—a place where they could stand out, shine, and share,” says our website. This cloud-based photo storage system lets you keep your treasure trove of memories—everything from scanned photos of your grandparents to your dog’s pictures–easily accessible online, without compromising security and image quality. The catch? It’s not a free service—plans start at $47.88 per year. If you’re a hardcore photographer, this is perfect for you.

Nixplay’s Dynamic Playlists, Explained

By Mars Salazar

On October 18, 2018

In From The Nixplay Team

Not all photo subjects are created equal. Some people (like your baby niece), events (like your recent vacation in NYC), and animals (like your pet corgi) deserve to be snapped more than others, and rightfully so. But how can you easily gather all your similar photos into one album, and how can you display them easily?

Dynamic Playlists are the are the solution!

Earlier this year, we joined the Google Photos Partner Program in search of ways to make playlist creation easier. The result: Dynamic Playlists, which Google Photos has since referred to as “Live Albums.” Google’s Live Albums and Nixplay’s Dynamic Playlists both harness Google Photos’ ability to group pictures according to location, date, or subject, making image organization a breeze.

Learn more about Live albums here.

With dynamic playlists, the stress involved in sorting your images is now gone. This way, all the photos of your adorable niece will automatically be sorted into a single dynamic playlist you can immediately display on your Nixplay Frame, as long as they’re on your Google Photos account. The pictures of your cute dog or the shots you took during your last trip will also get the same treatment. Looking for photos of your favorite subjects has never been easier.

The best part? Every time you take a new photo of your godchild, the image will be instantly added to its corresponding dynamic playlist, which you can display on your Nixplay Frame. This way, your Nixplay Frame will stay automatically updated with your latest images. Now you can always have your favorite memories at your fingertips—no more manual tinkering needed.

Download the Nixplay Mobile App now to start creating your very own dynamic playlists.

Mars Salazar

Marianne is Nixplay’s Web Content Editor. Her hobbies include exploring new places, playing table tennis, and cuddling puppies. Send her a message at marianne.salazar@nixplay.com.

5 Things You Can Do With All The Travel Photos You Took This Summer

5 Things You Can Do With The Travel Photos You Took This Summer

By Mars Salazar

On August 20, 2018

In Photography

Summer’s almost over, and we’re sure you went on a few out-of-town trips to enjoy the great weather. You probably also took hundreds of photos to immortalize your trip, as you should.

Now, we’d like to ask you a question: What have you done with all the photos you took? Are they still languishing in your phone or camera’s memory card, with none of them (save for a couple of Instagrammable ones) ever seeing the light of day?

If you find yourself nodding along—we’re guilty of this, too—then here are some things you can do to truly immortalize your photos. This way, if you find yourself reminiscing about lazy days in far-off places, you’ll know exactly where to look.

1. Organize and back them up

The first thing you should do with your travel photos is to go through all of them and sort them according to place or date. More importantly, don’t forget to back them up on an external hard drive or better yet, on a cloud-based data storage system. This way, if your computer breaks down or your memory card gets corrupted, your photos will remain secure.

If you don’t have the time or the willpower to go through your images one by one, you should try using Google Photos—it automatically sorts your images and keeps them secure online at zero cost. How’s that for hassle-free?

2. Share them on social media

Just because you’re back from your trip doesn’t mean you can’t upload your vacation photos anymore! Your Instagram or Facebook account, your rules—and if you want to upload a photo from your Barcelona tour a month ago, you shouldn’t let anyone stop you from doing so. You may be back in your “real world,” but you can still let your social media persona bask in vacation bliss.

3. Frame them

When you have dozens of photos of beautiful places and incredible moments, it can be difficult to pick a few to print and frame. The easy solution: A digital photo frame that can store and display hundreds of images. NIX digital frames have USB and SD card ports for your pictures, while Nixplay Wi-Fi Cloud Frames lets you store and access your images and videos from the cloud.

And since we already mentioned Google Photos in a previous item, here’s another great thing it can do: If you have a Nixplay Frame, you can enable your Nixplay app to access your Google Photos account so it instantly updates the images on your frame for you. Displaying your travel photos has never been so easy!

4. Create art based on them

During your trip, you were probably lucky enough to take photos of some incredibly majestic sights. It doesn’t have to be something incredibly spectacular—a vivid sunrise or a particularly tranquil afternoon at the park can be just as inspiring. If you’re artistically inclined, take out your paints and brushes and paint your interpretation of the scene. If you’re pleased with your work, hang it in your home for an instant feel-good vibe.

5. Do some scrapbooking

Do you tend to keep tickets, receipts, cards, stickers, and other small printed paraphernalia accumulated during a trip? Take them out of the box you’ve been keeping them in and arrange them in a scrapbook along with printouts of your travel photos! This way, your children and grandchildren will have a well-preserved glimpse of all the adventures you’ve had.

Mars Salazar

Marianne is Nixplay’s Web Content Editor. Her hobbies include exploring new places, playing table tennis, and cuddling puppies. Send her a message at marianne.salazar@nixplay.com.

google photos for nixplay digital frame blog main image

5 Reasons Why You Should Start Using Google Photos Right Now (If You Haven’t Done So Yet)

By Mars Salazar

On August 12, 2018

In From The Nixplay Team, Photography

If you love taking pictures, you need Google Photos handy on all your gadgets. This app lets you back up, edit, and share your images and videos with ease, making it the perfect companion of your Nixplay Wi-Fi Cloud Frames. If you’re not yet sold on Google Photos, here’s why you should start using it ASAP:

1) It organizes your photos for you.

Google Photos automatically sorts your photos, such as the ones you took during a recent vacation, into albums by using machine intelligence. These albums are created when you back up new pictures to your account.

Now you can show off these albums, too: During the 2018 Google I/O Developers’ Summit, it was announced that Nixplay has joined the Google Photos partner program to help you securely access your priceless memories. And with the latest Nixplay app update, you can choose to stream your Google Photos albums to your Nixplay Wi-Fi Cloud Frame.

Google Photos is now integrated with the Nixplay mobile app.

When a new image is added to a Google Photos album, it will also appear on your Nixplay frame. It’s never been easier (and more fun!) to stay up to date on your loved ones’ lives. Update your Nixplay app now so you won’t miss out!

2) It lets you share your photos easily.

Want to have all the pictures your family took during your Europe trip in one place? With just a few clicks, you can create a shared album on Google Photos where you and your loved ones can easily upload your snapshots for everyone to see, whether they have the Google Photos app or not.

3) It helps you free up your phone’s memory.

Photos and videos can easily eat up a large chunk of your phone’s memory. Google Photos lets you back up your priceless memories and free up space on your phone in one go, hitting two birds with one stone.

Once your phone’s done backing up your pictures, just select the “Free Up Space” option under the menu. The photos and videos that have been backed up to Google Photos will be moved to your “Trash” folder, where you can permanently delete them from your phone’s memory. This simple action frees up precious space on your phone.

4) It lets you create photo books (in the U.S. and Canada).

Whether you’re tech-savvy or a technophobe, you have to admit that nothing still beats the experience of leafing through a printed photo album. Once you’ve set up your Google Photos account, you can have up to 100 pictures printed in a photo book for a reasonable fee. Easy, right?

5) It helps you digitize old photos.

PhotoScan is a nifty Google-made app that lets you scan printed photos using your phone’s camera glare-free. It also automatically crops and enhances your images, so your 20-year-old grade school pictures and your parents’ 40-year-old wedding photos stay vibrant during their online migration. You can choose to back up your scanned PhotoScan images to your Google Photos account so you can view them anytime on your Google Photos library.

What’s your favorite Google Photos feature? Let us know in a comment below!

Mars Salazar

Marianne is Nixplay’s Web Content Editor. Her hobbies include exploring new places, playing table tennis, and cuddling puppies. Send her a message at marianne.salazar@nixplay.com.

This Is The Best Thing You Can Do For All Your Photos

By Mars Salazar

On May 9, 2018

In From The Nixplay Team, Photography

Taking photos is one of the best ways to preserve life’s most precious moments, whether it’s a Sunday dinner with the whole family or your grandchild’s first steps. But what do you do with all the pictures you’ve taken? Saving them on your computer is the first step, but it seems like a waste to just let them languish on a hard drive forever.

Luckily, digital frame company Nixplay has a solution for that. Because Nixplay’s joining the Google Photos Partner Program and using the Google Photos Library API, you’ll soon be able to securely access even more of your most treasured memories on your Nixplay Wi-Fi Cloud Frames anytime, anywhere.

A concept presentation of how Google Photos will be integrated with the Nixplay mobile app. This is not the final product demonstration.

During the 2018 Google I/O Developers’ Summit held on May 8 in Mountain View, California, it was announced that Nixplay will be one of the first companies to launch its integration with Google Photos to its customers in the coming months. With this development, Google Photos will soon send your albums directly to your Nixplay Wi-Fi Cloud Frames, eliminating the need for you to spend precious time selecting photos for your playlists.

The best part is that if you’ve sent albums from Google Photos to your Nixplay frame, every time a new image is added into one of those albums on Google Photos, it will also be automatically uploaded to and viewable on your frame. This feature is especially great for people who live away from their loved ones, as this presents a new way for them to stay connected to them. Now, not only will your treasured moments be within reach, but you’ll always be in touch with those who matter most in your life.

This innovation, scheduled for release in the summer of 2018, is the latest feather in the cap of Creedon Technologies, the parent company of Nixplay and its sister brands, NIX and Nixplay Signage. Creedon Technologies has sold close to 1.5 million units of Nixplay Wi-Fi Cloud Frames, Nix Digital Frames, and Nixplay Signage Solutions since its inception in 2007, making it the global leader in its field. By harnessing the power of cloud storage, service technology, and security, Creedon Technologies has empowered its customers to display their photos and share their memories in a sophisticated manner.

Are you as excited for this as we are? Let us know your thoughts by leaving a comment below!

Mars Salazar

Marianne is Nixplay’s Web Content Editor. Her hobbies include exploring new places, playing table tennis, and cuddling puppies. Send her a message at marianne.salazar@nixplay.com.