BigShinyThing

A brief (highly subjective) list of internet milestones:

• 1980s: newsgroups and email & packet-switched internetworking
• 1990s: multi-user virtuality, streaming media, dotcom 1.0
• 2000s: people (finally) embracing social media

Anyway, you get the idea. Fast forward through Web 2.0 to get to 2007, and this — Microsoft’s PhotoSynth.

A bit of perspective: when I studied computational approaches to vision in the 80s, ’state-of-the-art’ meant software that could get a cruise missile somewhere near Red Square, given a decent topographic map. PhotoSynth can build 3D models of Red Square (or anywhere else on the planet) from snapshots on Flickr, aggregate and process tags & other metadata to build a semantic web describing what’s there, then navigate the whole kaboodle in real time on any recentish networked PC. Google Earth: roll over and play dead. At least for the next few weeks, Microsoft owns the coolest tech on the block, bar none: some important part of the future looks like this. The original post and other options for viewing are here: just watch the video all the way through. You can see what the BBC have been doing with this tech over at their How We Built Britain site.

Paranthetically, note the presence of the 90’s poster child of infinite zoom — a Mandelbrot set — at the top-left of the SeaDragon demo image used in the video. Does the demo go anywhere near it? No way. In 2007 we no longer use trippy fractals to show off the bewildering wonderfulness of our tech. Instead, we are taken on a zoom into a car ad to show how it’s possible to embed tech specs in a teeny corner of the image without pop-ups. How times change. Wasn’t there a moment there when we were dreaming of more than a better car ad? Maybe not at Microsoft. Sigh.

[via Tim, who sent me a link to the early Java proof-of-concept last year, and a link to this video yesterday]