From the Front Lines: Microsoft Pro Photo Summit

It was kind of an exciting moment when my shuttlebus pulled into Microsoft’s headquarters for this year’s Microsoft Pro Photo Summit. No sightings of Bill Gates yet, but there has been enough fancy coffee to do the town proud.

So far, a few hours into the conference, non-caffeine-based highlights include:

•Microsoft Chief Technology Officer, David Vaskevitch, holds up the iPhone and quips “Somebody did a good job marketing this thing.”
•A demo of the dazzling Photosynth site: It takes multiple images, analyzes them for their key matching points, and makes them into a three-dimensional model. You can spin it around, zoom in on interesting areas, and check out the high-resolution images that reside on those points. If you’re on a PC, check it out.
• Gigapixels! You can use Microsoft’s HDView to display your super-high resolution photos. And if you don’t make your own, zoom in close on theirs here.

—Debbie Grossman
Associate Editor

Comments

[Andrew Ferguson]

Photosynth looks interesting and has looked interesting for months now.

Unfortunately, they're taking their time bringing it to market and there doesn't seem to be much of a point to it other than that it looks cool.

We'll see, I guess...

[Doug Plummer]

Gee, we missed each other. I was blogging throughout the conference, it would have been nice to compare notes.

dougplummer.blogs.com

[Derek]

Thanks for the first photo. I miss those orange cups (I left the company earlier this year).