Photosynth Captures Attention

After watching a fascinating presentation from Microsoft Live Labs architect Blaise Agüera y Arcas on the capabilities of the C Dragon technology and Photosynth software, it was hard not to be impressed. I was especially in awe of the zooming features that Photosynth displayed, and had literally not seen anything like that before. Amidst all the incredible applications I am sure will develop for this software, the one that came to mind first for me was facial recognition. I imagined a situation where criminals, when brought in for a mugshot, are not merely subject to one straight on photo, and a couple of profiles, but are put into a scenario where a camera(s) takes hundreds of digital photos from hundreds of different angles. The software would then develop a three-dimensional model of the face based on similarities, and a witness could then be able to use Photosynth software to rotate and examine faces from a vast number of different angles, and appropriately from the angle that they may have seen a criminal. I am sure I will be hearing more about this software over the next few years and look forward to discovering how the online community realizes this technology’s potential.