It was announced today that Google acquired photo storage app Odysee. The app, which automatically backs up photos and videos taken on your smartphone, will shut down on February 23rd.
As a result of the deal Odysee’s development team will be joining the Google+ team, a move which has led to speculation that Odysee’s unique features will eventually be integrated into G+.
In addition to backing up media captured on your mobile device, Odysee also allows for automatic private sharing with other users. Odysee also has an intelligent feature where it determines which quality to store your media in based on how likely you are to access it. Frequently accessed media is stored in the highest quality, while media the app believes you won’t look at as much is stored in lower quality.
It seems likely that we’ll start to see some of these features in G+ at some point, or Google may go another route entirely. There’s talk that Google is preparing to launch a standalone Photos app, in which case Odysee’s features may be used there instead. Whatever the case may be, it looks like Google is planning to make a major move with respect to photo and video storage.
Existing users of Odysee will be able to access the service to download their stored photos and videos even after the planned shutdown at the end of the month.
Google has confirmed the acquisition, but no further details are being released at this point.
