Google is on a mission to make the photos and videos you backup more useful. The company today introduced a new feature for Google+ called Stories, which automatically builds a digital journal filled with only your best images and clips.
Starting this week on Android and the Web, Google+ will now look through your uploaded photos, videos and the places you’ve visited to create a new travelogue. The end result is a full-screen experience, starting with a slideshow cover and a timeline of images. Some will have captions underneath and there are digital bookends to convey when they were taken.
As you scroll from left to right the verticality of the timeline will change, creating an almost meandering path for you to follow. Each Google+ Story is slickly produced and closely resembles a physical photo album; perfect for sharing with your partner, distant relatives and close friends.
“No more sifting through photos for your best shots, racking your brain for the sights you saw, or letting your videos collect virtual dust,” a blog post reads. “We’ll just gift you a story after you get home. This way you can relive your favorite moments, share them with others, and remember why you traveled in the first place.”
Google says the feature will be available to iOS users soon. Provided you’re backing up your photos and videos to Google+, you should be notified whenever a new Google+ Story is available for review.
As part of the release, Google also unveiled an update for its Auto-Awesome Movies feature. Whereas before you would only be notified of new montages from an Android device, that will now carry over to iOS and the Web. Although Google didn’t go into the details, we suspect that’ll also include basic editing.
➤ Google+ | Google Play | App Store
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