Photosynth(esis)
December 1st, 2006
It’s not everyday that you come across a product that makes you sit up and just wonder if you’ve been sleeping all along. And I can simply say there is one upcoming product that made me feel just like that. Never before in my 18 years of working with technology have I encountered a product for which the word ‘wow’ wouldn’t suffice. I guess Google’s search engine is the only technology that comes ‘second’ in my mind…
I agree it might just be the lure of a sexy new technology. But then, if you just go through Microsoft Live Labs’ Photosynth product, well, you’ll realize what I’m saying. So, what is this Photosynth? Nothing much really, if you just look at what it says it does. But then, if you look at what goes behind the front-end and what the ultimate objective of the project is, it’s nothing short of ‘amazingly wowwwwww’.
Photosynth is a product that Microsoft Labs (Microsoft’s Research group) is creating with the University of Washington. The product, currently in its ‘Technical Preview’ release, allows users to:
Walk or fly through a scene to see photos from any angle.
Seamlessly zoom in or out of a photo whether it’s megapixels or gigapixels in size.
See where pictures were taken in relation to one another.
Find similar photos to the one you’re currently viewing.
Send a collection - or a particular view of one - to a friend.
Wait, there’s more…this product is much more than a photo-viewing tool. If you work through what’s going on behind the scenes, you’ll know why it’s so difficult to do and the ground-breaking idea behind the product. Working through this application, theoretically at least, we could create a fully virtual model of the entire world. Imagine sitting in your home and roaming the streets of Manhattan, zooming in and out wherever you want, as if you were controlling a camera. Or perhaps, imagine going through the Taj Mahal from the inside without having to move from your chair. One image you took during a vacation could become the precursor of reliving the complete experience, in 3D reality, all hyperlinked visually and enabled with the social perspective. In a way, this is the next logical level of the web - extending a text-hyperlinking model to a visual hyperlinking model.
I am pretty sure this technology will enable the creation of new business models. Imaging people constructing virtual models that mimic reality and take you through guided tours, and then charge you a small fee for doing it. Imagine being through every street en route before venturing out to meet someone. Imagine the next level of Google Earth. Imaging businesses again capitalizing on their physical location to establish brands. Imagine!
I am sure there are hundreds of ways you could use this and I am even more convinced there will be hundreds of ways people will use this technology beyond what its inventors even thought of. And that is precisely what gets me all hyped up about this stuff. It’s an amazing technology all right. But what’s more amazing is that it frees people up to build on it…it’s like an enabler, a precursor to something larger.
The months and years ahead will bear testimony to whether Photosynth lives up to the GIANT expectations that it has created, or whether the hype dies down. Let’s hope, for our sake, and technology’s sake, that we see more products and technologies like these.
For those of you who are interested, take a look at the Photosynth Website and tell me what you think!
Wait, there’s more…this product is much more than a photo-viewing tool. If you work through what’s going on behind the scenes, you’ll know why it’s so difficult to do and the ground-breaking idea behind the product. Working through this application, theoretically at least, we could create a fully virtual model of the entire world. Imagine sitting in your home and roaming the streets of Manhattan, zooming in and out wherever you want, as if you were controlling a camera. Or perhaps, imagine going through the Taj Mahal from the inside without having to move from your chair. One image you took during a vacation could become the precursor of reliving the complete experience, in 3D reality, all hyperlinked visually and enabled with the social perspective. In a way, this is the next logical level of the web - extending a text-hyperlinking model to a visual hyperlinking model.
I am pretty sure this technology will enable the creation of new business models. Imaging people constructing virtual models that mimic reality and take you through guided tours, and then charge you a small fee for doing it. Imagine being through every street en route before venturing out to meet someone. Imagine the next level of Google Earth. Imaging businesses again capitalizing on their physical location to establish brands. Imagine!
I am sure there are hundreds of ways you could use this and I am even more convinced there will be hundreds of ways people will use this technology beyond what its inventors even thought of. And that is precisely what gets me all hyped up about this stuff. It’s an amazing technology all right. But what’s more amazing is that it frees people up to build on it…it’s like an enabler, a precursor to something larger.
The months and years ahead will bear testimony to whether Photosynth lives up to the GIANT expectations that it has created, or whether the hype dies down. Let’s hope, for our sake, and technology’s sake, that we see more products and technologies like these.
For those of you who are interested, take a look at the Photosynth Website and tell me what you think!
