Now here is something genuinely original from Microsoft — Photosynth. (Well, some of it seems to rely on Seadragon, a technology developed by a company recently acquired by Microsoft, but still…)

It’s software that takes a large collection of photos of a place or an object, analyzes them for similarities, and displays them in a reconstructed three-dimensional space.

There’s a fascinating TED talk by Blaise Aguera y Arcas which demonstrates the idea.

Thanks to Tony Hirst for the link.

Later… Quentin points out that the online demonstrations will only work in IE. Well, what do you expect…?