Facebook Moments app (Photo : Facebook)
Facebook has released a new smartphone app called Moments that organizes mobile phone photos, and lets users do private photo sharing with a select group of friends. The standalone app, which is available on Android and iOS, then automatically sorts photos based on the date taken and people pictured.
Moments applies the same facial recognition technology used on the Facebook website. The new app uses artificial intelligence (AI) to determine Facebook users in photos, and then suggests to them that it combine the images, according to NBC News.
Moments allows users to share pictures with people who are at any big event. Some examples include a birthday party, wedding ceremony, or family reunion.
Facebook's new photo sharing app solves a common problem in the Digital Age. Sometimes people do not want all Facebook friends to see certain photos, but they woud like to share them with their best buddies or close relatives.
The Facebook app for private photo sharing eliminates the need for users to sift through their cellphones to find every single picture from Event X, and then share them with Friend Y and Friend Z. They can later browse event galleries created by the app.
However, posting photos to Facebook or Instagram is still manual, according to PC World.
The tagging feature of the separate app only works if people in the photos own a Facebook account and have enabled tagging. Social network users will only see a preview of synced pics in the Messenger app without having the new picture sharing application. They must download the app.
Facebook's new tool for private photo sharing helps it to keep up with rivals Google and Yahoo. The former recently unveiled Google Photos, which automatically recognizes content inside images, such as people and objects. Meanwhile, a new feature on Yahoo's Flickr automatically tags photo elements.
Moments is currently only available for mobile devices. The social media giant Facebook has not announced plans for rolling out a desktop version.
