More Web 2.0: Microsoft's Amazing Photosynth

Gary Flake of Microsoft's Live Labs is onstage demonstrating what is without question the coolest thing I've seen so far at Web 2.0: a photo viewer called Photosynth. (Disclaimer: I haven't attended every single session at the conference, so it's possible I missed out on something even niftier.)

Photosynth, well, synthesizes photos--it analyzes pictures, which could be taken by different people at different times, and when it finds ones of the same place, it stitches them together into an extremely high-resolution 3D world. It's not quite a fully-realized virtual world--it's more like a somewhat abstract recreation with bits and pieces rendered in photographic detail. But the demo, which involves Venice's San Marcos Square, is spectacular. I'm not sure if I've seen anything quite as mindblowing since Google Earth.

Photosynth is a tech preview, not a product--you can't upload your own photos, for instance. But you can apparently download the viewer software (Windows only, alas) here. What a tech preview it is--and my mind is boggling at the potential of the basic idea here if it evolves into a full-blown community photo-sharing service a la Flickr...