Facebook unveils Moments, a private way to share photos

Hitting right on spot of the photo-sharing concerns of its users, Facebook on Monday launched a standalone app for photo sharing with friends, called Moments. While maintaining the joy of sharing, the app makes the process easier and more private.

The new app is available in both iOS and Android phones.

Generally, it is worksome to get photos your friends have taken of you and everybody else, with each one in the group insisting on taking the same group shot with multiple phones to get a copy. Though you might get some of your pics, it is hard to keep them all organized in one place in your phone.

Moment app allows users to sync to your phone's camera roll and then uses facial recognition and location to group photos and help you share them with the right friends. You can sync with you friends' phone and they can sync with yours, so you have each other's pictures. Now, you and your friends have all the photos that you taken separately, says Facebook.  

For instance, we are at a wedding and several people are taking great photos throughout the event. you want a quick way to share our pictures with friends who are in them, and get the photos that you are in as well. 

The new app also keeps all of your synced photos organized and even allows you to search them to find the ones that you or specific friends are in. Though facial recognition technology, Moments group your photos based on the friends who are in them. If more than one face is recognized then it asks you to share it with a group. This is same technology that gives tag suggestion on Facebook. Tag suggestions can be adjusted in the Settings option.

Moment will be rolled out to other countries over the time. It can be downloaded from App Store or Google Play, says Facebook.

The app is the fresh product of Facebook's Creative Lab, the same group that introduced apps like Slingshot and Poke. The latest move exhibits Facebook's interest to invest in artificial intelligence. However, its success would depend on efficiency of the app in  Face Recognition, says experts.  

Facebook artificial intelligence director Yann Lecun explains how "recognizing face is very, very difficult as a single person can look different from photo to photo depending on various factors and this makes it difficult task for a computer intelligence."

Earlier, Microsoft introduced a similar app- How-old.net, aimed to recognize face and age of the person in a photo. However, its results were so inaccurate that it was laughable.