A Ukrainian startup launches an online service that lets people converse as they peruse a photo gallery together. November 28, 2013 7:47 AM PST The Live.pics.io service lets a group of people across the Internet see and discuss a group of photos. (Credit: TopTechPhoto/Pics.io) Miss the days of real-world slideshows, when you'd guests would come by to see your vacation photos and hear you tell the story behind the shots? Ukrainian startup TopTechPhoto launched a service called Live.pics.io on Wenesday that aims to reproduce the experience online. The service works over a private chat room on the Web, but the company plans to launch a Facebook app in a week or two that uses the service, too. Sites such as Flickr or Facebook are fine for sharing photos, but they aren't set up for a live conversational tour of a photo gallery. Screen-sharing services can help, but they can mean lousy resolution -- the last thing you want while looking at photos. "Basically, it's live collaborative image sharing: images are accompanied with the voice of the session host in a real-time," said Konstantin Shtondenko, chief business development officer. To use the Live.pics.io, you drag a batch of photos into a browser window to upload them. The service generates a Web address that you send to the person or people with whom you want to share the photos. The Live.pics.io instructions are fairly simple -- but at launch, you have to make sure all participants are using the same browser, either Firefox or Chrome. (Credit: TopTechPhoto/Pics.io) Related stories SD Card: Too bad this format won the flash-card wars Click! Google rebuilds Android camera base for better photos Focal shift: Press photogs riled by White House social media Zeiss Otus 55mm f1.4 lens tests show unparalleled sharpness When the recipient opens the link it'll launch a window showing the photos privately and open a channel for voice communications. When you advance to the next photo, the other person will see it, too -- including support for high-resolution displays such as Apple's Retina models. The service supports not just JPEG files but, unusually, some raw-format photos from higher-end cameras. That includes raw photos in Nikon's NEF format, Canon's CR2, and Adobe Systems' DNG. Pics.io has developed Web-based software for handling raw photos, which ordinarily require native software such as Adobe Lightroom or Apple iPhoto to decode. Even though the service doesn't share those high-resolution originals during the slideshow, which would slow things down a lot, you do of course have to upload them before the slideshow is ready, something that could dampen your enthusiasm for a spontaneous slideshow moment. Right now the service works only on Firefox and Chrome, and people must all be using the same browser. They should be able to interoperate with compatibility improvements in the underlying WebRTC technology for audio and video chat on the Web. Those browser versions are due to arrive in coming weeks.

A Ukrainian startup launches an online service that lets people converse as they peruse a photo gallery together.

November 28, 2013 7:47 AM PST

The Live.pics.io service lets a group of people across the Internet see and discuss a group of photos.

(Credit: TopTechPhoto/Pics.io)

Miss the days of real-world slideshows, when you'd guests would come by to see your vacation photos and hear you tell the story behind the shots? Ukrainian startup TopTechPhoto launched a service called Live.pics.io on Wenesday that aims to reproduce the experience online.

The service works over a private chat room on the Web, but the company plans to launch a Facebook app in a week or two that uses the service, too.

Sites such as Flickr or Facebook are fine for sharing photos, but they aren't set up for a live conversational tour of a photo gallery. Screen-sharing services can help, but they can mean lousy resolution -- the last thing you want while looking at photos.

"Basically, it's live collaborative image sharing: images are accompanied with the voice of the session host in a real-time," said Konstantin Shtondenko, chief business development officer.

To use the Live.pics.io, you drag a batch of photos into a browser window to upload them. The service generates a Web address that you send to the person or people with whom you want to share the photos.

The Live.pics.io instructions are fairly simple -- but at launch, you have to make sure all participants are using the same browser, either Firefox or Chrome.

(Credit: TopTechPhoto/Pics.io)

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• SD Card: Too bad this format won the flash-card wars


• Click! Google rebuilds Android camera base for better photos


• Focal shift: Press photogs riled by White House social media


• Zeiss Otus 55mm f1.4 lens tests show unparalleled sharpness

When the recipient opens the link it'll launch a window showing the photos privately and open a channel for voice communications. When you advance to the next photo, the other person will see it, too -- including support for high-resolution displays such as Apple's Retina models.

The service supports not just JPEG files but, unusually, some raw-format photos from higher-end cameras. That includes raw photos in Nikon's NEF format, Canon's CR2, and Adobe Systems' DNG. Pics.io has developed Web-based software for handling raw photos, which ordinarily require native software such as Adobe Lightroom or Apple iPhoto to decode.

Even though the service doesn't share those high-resolution originals during the slideshow, which would slow things down a lot, you do of course have to upload them before the slideshow is ready, something that could dampen your enthusiasm for a spontaneous slideshow moment.

Right now the service works only on Firefox and Chrome, and people must all be using the same browser. They should be able to interoperate with compatibility improvements in the underlying WebRTC technology for audio and video chat on the Web. Those browser versions are due to arrive in coming weeks.