I’d previously read about Microsoft Live Labs’ Photosynth, but up until now those articles only provided accompanying images. Basically the way I understand this is that while Google is going around with customized data-collection trucks documenting the world and assembling the pieces for everyone, Microsoft is essentially crowdsourcing/ outsourcing the work to netizens and letting the pieces self-assemble.
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The New York Times is carrying a story I figure is worth mentioning, if only because I’ve addressed the same issues on this blog a number of times and like to harp on them. The article, “Awaiting Real Sales From Virtual Shoppers” (Link), is a bit glazed over, but I did appreciate some of the details that fell out. Some of the highlights for me:

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The first time I experienced a virtual simulation was in 1985. The military systems on which I was being trained were usually nothing more than big interactive screens inside a mocked-up space; not nearly as fun as firefighting training in blazing boiler rooms full of smoke, or ship flooding trainers where you had to team together to escape through a hatch leading to a flooded room above you (tough to do). Those primitive systems were still interesting to me though, mostly because of my passion for filmmaking, with which I saw obvious similarities. It wasn’t until a few years later when I read Gibson’s “Burning Chrome” that I saw the potential which sparked my return to college for a second degree.
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Yesterday evening I stumbled upon mention over on The Weekly Squeek blog (Link) of an Economist article interviewing millionaire space tourist and Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth. Here’s an excerpt from that interview (Link):

But Mr Shuttleworth is most excited about free software’s potential to open up the third dimension in the display and navigation of information. “In the space station there was no sensation of up or down,” he recalls. Continue reading →

Via Tateru Nino on the Second Life Insider comes word (Link) that a “Microsoft XBox” island has broken the virtual surface in Second Life. As Tateru says, Microsoft’s presence isn’t news, but their intentions will certainly fuel speculation, especially with Sony’s Playstation 3 “Home” (reLink) in beta and full release on the horizon.

I tend to agree it’s most likely an advertising effort, but who knows. If Linden Lab does have intentions of going open source and pushing SL as a kind of internet 3D standard, it’d probably be easier to facilitate avatar portability (using the same avatar across virtual spaces) if a “console continent” was constructed from the same underlying codebase.

So if Sony’s PS3 is finally going to have games that make it worth the high price tag, and they are go live with “Home” this Fall, then what better way for Microsoft to respond than with lower prices and perhaps an announcement aimed directly at “Home”?