If you haven’t looked at Photosynth from Microsoft Live Labs yet you have got to see it. One of my team was playing with it at lunch time and I was blown away by the possibilities. This is a virtual world made up from hundreds of photos that you can zoom and fly through (in a web browser not a fat client).
If you are a Brit have a look at the stuff they have done with the BBC for the How We Built Britain series.
No doubt everyone who looks at it will have a different idea of how it can be used. My first thought was hundreds of millions of mobile phones walking around with 2-3 meg cameras built in, how long would it take for a community project to come together enabling everyone to upload their photos to Photosynth and build a virtual world? Pictometry, commercial oblique photography, 3D mapping projects – ouch!
It’s only a beta but if you read the explanation of the technology you will see some exciting possibilities. I wonder how GY (in GYM) will respond, no doubt they have some even more funky stuff on the way.
