Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Photosynth from Microsoft Live Labs

Looks like Microsoft is taking a page from Google's playbook with their approach to R&D. At least, they're buying-up cool technologies and releasing them via Microsoft Live Labs. Some of you may have already heard of Photosynth, but for those who haven't, here's Microsoft's description.

"The Photosynth Technology Preview is a taste of the newest - and, we hope, most exciting - way to view photos on a computer. Our software takes a large collection of photos of a place or an object, analyzes them for similarities, and then displays the photos in a reconstructed three-dimensional space, showing you how each one relates to the next.

In our collections, you can access gigabytes of photos in seconds, view a scene from nearly any angle, find similar photos with a single click, and zoom in to make the smallest detail as big as your monitor."

If it's even half as cool as their claims, then this could be a really fun and useful application. I literally just started playing with it, so no real opinion yet.

Monday, May 14, 2007

Pre-TechEd 1

So, the Microsoft TechEd conference is quickly approaching. For those who don't know what that is, check out the website. As in 2005, the conference is being held in the 2.1 million square foot Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, FL. There should be roughly 12000 people in attendance this year, and I'm really looking forward to it. I will be traveling down there with a friend and, as time permits, keeping a daily photo diary here on my blog. Stay tuned for more information.