Thanks to smartphones, more photos are snapped every day than ever before, but very few of them ever actually make it from digital pixels to printed images. Kodak Moments is working to change that by digging up the “best” old photos using a new algorithm and a Facebook bot. In an update launched earlier this week, the Kodak Moments app now uses the new machine learning framework on iOS 11 to recommend the best shots from the camera roll. A similar feature is also available through the Kodak Moments chatbot, which finds the best photos from your Facebook profile for printing.
According to Fast Company, the new Made For You feature curates images from the camera roll, putting them together into “Moments” before recommending prints or photo products. Designed from a machine learning program developed by Kodak Moments, the program uses factors like location, time, and facial recognition to find what the program thinks are the best memories. The system also analyzes the photo quality.
The chatbot inside the Facebook Messenger app, called Kodak Moments Assistant, works similarly. Starting a message to “Kodak Moments Assistant” gets the process started. Users have to allow the program access to their profile, then the artificially intelligent program analyzes those Facebook photos. The program uses factors like total engagement, tagging, location, and relationships to suggest photos to print.
The suggested photos pop up inside Messenger, along with links to see more photos with the same people or to print the shot. Below that, an option for “Show me more moments” appears to generate more suggestions. Users can also upload photos to the chatbot for printing.
Once the photos are recommended, those shots may be printed through Kodak. According to the app store description, photos (and products like albums) may be printed and shipped or picked up at a kiosk.
Kodak Moments is the app owned by Kodak Alaris. The app is now in version 5.6, available on Google Play and the App Store.
Kodak’s Messenger bot may be unique, but the company isn’t the only one attempting to use AI to sort through large amounts of digital photos. Google Photos can also suggest images through an AI algorithm, along with the photo sharing and stock media app EyeEm.
