Microsoft Live Labs: Photosynth

Microsoft Live Labs: Photosynth

There are moments when you get a kind of vertigo, looking right over the edge of technology, and in to the future.

Google's addition of SketchUp to Google Earth was one of them - as was the first play with Google Earth itself. I've had a few moments in internal presentations too - where I've seen researchers presenting locative technology, or image recognition.

But blimey, this little site from Microsoft has fried my noodle. It's the most extraordinary piece of research around image recognition and spatial reconstruction I've ever seen.

I can't help linking it up in my head - a ubiquitous, photographed earth living collaboratively across each machine attached to the web. Second Life eat your heart out.

Mind you... where would the unmapped areas be? I'd suggest they might look a little like the darker patches in the earth at night...