AI-powered Pholio hard drive is an offline alternative to Google Photos
(Digital Photography Review)

If you feel uncomfortable with your images being stored on cloud servers the Pholio device is a new offline alternative that offers many of the features we are used to from cloud services like Google Photos. Once connected to a PC, Mac, tablet or smartphone, Pholio automatically searches through the device storage and backs up all images and videos, either at full size or smaller `optimized` versions. If you choose the latter Pholio provides a link to the full size-version. Pholio comes as a standard version with a 500GB capacity or as a `Pro` variant that offers 2TB of storage. 20,000 built-in descriptors allow for automatic tagging and easy searching, but the system is capable of learning if you want to add your own keywords. Face detection allows to find images and create albums for a specific person and the software is even capable of finding still shots within a video clip. The Pholio makers say an update will expand the backup services and include encryption. You can now reserve a 500GB Pholio by pledging £200 (approximately $260) on the project`s Kickstarter page. If the funding goal is reached delivery is expected for January 2018.