Shoto photo app launches on Android and iOS

Shoto app lets you automatically share smartphone photos with friends

A new app is launching in the UK today that uses a combination of location and phonebook details to automatically create albums of all the photos taken together by a group of friends at a given place and time.
Known as Shoto, the aim of the app is to solve the problem of never getting to see the photos that other people have taken an event, like a wedding or a office party. However, it also includes privacy controls that let the user select which people at the event get to see their pictures.
When the user downloads Shoto, all of the photos on their phone are automatically organised into albums and backed-up in the cloud. Shoto looks at the user’s phonebook and the geotags on their photos and matches these albums with those from friends that were also present in the same location at the same time.
For example, if a group of friends all download Shoto, they will instantly have access to each other’s photos from an event they all attended together. However, this would only be the case if all of the people in the group had the other members saved in their phonebook.
If the user wants to share a photo album with someone who was not there – for example, an aunt who couldn't make it to her niece's wedding – Shoto allows the user to send an album with a note. However, when the album is shared, only the photos taken by the sender will show up.
“Shoto works out which of your real friends are with you, and automatically brings together your and their photos into a single set of smart albums, so that you can enjoy memories without having to nag, be nagged and without looking at your photos in a piecemeal manner.” says Sachin Dev Duggal, co-founder and 'chief wizard' at Shoto.
“We are entering a world of new dimensions and context; private is the new social, people want to have intimate conversations about real memories with their real friends. Shoto does exactly this – no manual process, no setup, just unparalleled ease and control.”
Users can control what others see by selecting “me,” “friends there,” or “world” using an simple circle gesture. This can be set at an app, album or photo level and control is instant, meaning that as the privacy setting are changed, photos appear or disappear from other people's phones.
The app includes machine-learning algorithms that build up an understanding of the user based on their historical photo-taking behaviour. Duggal has big plans to build on this intelligence to offer new services such as restaurant recommendations as the app develops.
Shoto was launched today at the Dublin Web Summit and is now available, for free, in the Apple App Store and via Google Play.

Source : The Telegraph