The Google Picasa team announced a set of
useful
additions
to the Picasa Web API yesterday. I've added support for most of
these new features in module gphoto
that is part of my Emacs G-Client package.
You can get the latest version of package Emacs-G-Client via SVN. Note that this development version of package Emacs-G-Client also includes a light-weight client for finding and playing YouTube videos.