From the Front Lines: Microsoft Pro Photo Summit

It was kind of an exciting moment when my shuttlebus pulled into Microsoft’s headquarters for this year’s Microsoft Pro Photo Summit. No sightings of Bill Gates yet, but there has been enough fancy coffee to do the town proud.

So far, a few hours into the conference, non-caffeine-based highlights include:

•Microsoft Chief Technology Officer, David Vaskevitch, holds up the iPhone and quips “Somebody did a good job marketing this thing.”
•A demo of the dazzling Photosynth site: It takes multiple images, analyzes them for their key matching points, and makes them into a three-dimensional model. You can spin it around, zoom in on interesting areas, and check out the high-resolution images that reside on those points. If you’re on a PC, check it out.
• Gigapixels! You can use Microsoft’s HDView to display your super-high resolution photos. And if you don’t make your own, zoom in close on theirs here.

—Debbie Grossman
Associate Editor