Screen Shot 2015-05-28 at 11.07.29 AMGoogle is pulling ahead in the race to solve photo overload. Its new Google Photos service backs up and organizes photos and video via Android, iOS and the web. The service will store all your photos and videos for free starting today.

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Searching for events is made easy due to Google’s Knowledge Graph (Screenshot via Google I/O stream)

The new service was announced during the Google I/O developer conference today. It appears that it will replicate many features found in the Google+ Photos section.

With a smartphone app or online, pictures you take will quickly be uploaded to the cloud, where they will be analyzed to be automatically organized by who’s in them, where they were taken and even events that you may have captured.

Photos uses machine learning to quickly organize photos. In an example from the presentation, every picture of the presenter’s niece was accessible in a unified album, all the way back to the week of her birth. Photos is able to recognize her as she ages. Pictures are also organized into locations and can be searched for by event, like “snowstorm in Toronto.” Photos Assistant will also intelligently combine video footage and stills into a cohesive visual story.

Google has also made sharing easier. You can now select a large number of photos by tapping and dragging. You can then share them with a link, and the recipient can see them on a web page. You can also make sharable albums, animations and other collections of photos and video.

Photos offers users unlimited backup of photos stored at 16 megapixels and unlimited 1080p video. The service is available now on its new site; apps are available for iOS and Android as well.

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