Want to see what the future holds for Your pictures?

This video, which demonstrates Microsoft's new technology called 'Photosynth' shows that with a bit of lateral thinking, some amazing things are still possible with computers. Things that haven't been thought of before.

The video shows how sites like flickr, which host millions of pictures online, can be used to join millions of photos from millions of photographers together to create a 'seamless' 3D photo, where users can navigate around a space and examine the scene in minute detail.

The principal works on the basis that millions of pictures may be taken of one object, some on purpose, but also some by chance. These pictures can be analysed and then 'mapped' together to create a navigable environment. This is because each photo may capture the same building or scene but from a slightly different angle. By overlapping these pictures and by skewing or distorting them to include distance information, it's possible to create a navigable virtual world which is overlayed with real-world photographs. Even though The pictures may have been taken on all kinds of different cameras and for all kinds of different reasons.

The technology is new and slightly 'gimmicky' at the moment but in the future, it could offer invaluable evidence at crime scene locations where members of the public have recorded material on their mobiles which when joined together spatially, could offer a new insight into events as they actually occurred. The basis being that although one picture may lie, tens, hundreds or even thousands will not. If only this technology had been around in 1963 with the Kennedy Assassination?

The technology video is included in its entirety below although the 'Photosyth' section starts from about 2-3 mins in.

The blue screen of... shopping

Yes, I couldn't resist capturing this photograph as I wandered around Newcastle recently.

It seems that although M$ may power 90% of our IT infrastructure, there are quite a few examples of BSOD which are duly noted, and recorded by the public.

In fact, this flickr group is made up entirely of photographs of crashed computers in very public places. So if you catch a glimpse of a PC in distress, why not grab a quick pic and don't forget in a few days, we'll get to see what the Windows Vista one looks like too...

Microsoft 'hacked' off already

We really should be used to this now, Microsoft's latest version of Internet Explorer has already suffered a security compromise. The browser is less than one week old.

The loophole allows a website to 'masquerade' as another which could lead to end-users supplying sensitive data to unauthorized third parties, commonly known as 'phishing'.

This latest security issue is embarrassing for Microsoft as IE now includes 'anti-phishing technology' which obviously may not be as robust as the software giant had hoped for.

The best advice remains to keep your personal data to yourself and never follow links to supposedly 'well known' sites which then ask you to log in or provide bank details. Instead, visit webpages directly.