Filed under: Fun, Photo, Windows, Microsoft
Microsoft's Photosynth
by Jordan Running Jul 31st 2006 at 4:15PM
I couldn't think of a more descriptive title, because Microsoft's Photosynth is a little difficult to pin down. It's a product of Microsoft Live Labs that "takes a large collection of photos of a place or object, analyzes them for similarities, and displays them in a reconstructed 3-Dimensional space." In case that's not 100% enlightening, I recommend checking out the videos on the Photosynth site. Photosynth definitely looks cool--in fact it even looks a little sci-fi-- but is there anything to it beyond the wow-factor? What are people in the real world intended to use it for? Well, we have a while to figure it out, I think, since the site is very coy about when we'll be able to actually download it.
So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do.
Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game.
The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
ldm said 5:46PM on 7-31-2006
This is microsoft research. they do rsearch for teh sake of research. This could have a downlaod, or never have one. it could be put into a product, or not, or take years and only a part of it surives (Flip3d in vista was demoed back in 1998 as part of microsoft's "rooms" project).
Take this at face vaule: a new way of sticthing photogrpaghs together. If we see it, then cool, but dont assume that you will ever be able to use this.
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asurroca said 9:57AM on 8-01-2006
Mark my words, we're going to see this technology. Perhaps not this year, or the next, but eventually, it's going to be as mainstream as satellite photography is in mapping sites today.
I'm betting it's going to take about ten years for it to mature to that point, though. Five, at earliest. But, the site did say that they're working on a download, so I expect we'll at least get to try out a demo soon enough.
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Jeff Wheeler said 1:22PM on 8-01-2006
There already is a public version:
http://phototour.cs.washington.edu/applet/index.html
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