Photosynth: View and Create 3D Panoramas
Recently Microsoft released the final version of its long-in-beta web app called Photosynth.
Photosynth gives users the ability to view and create 3D Panoramas and virtual tours. Basically it takes a collection of regular photographs and reconstructs the scene or object in a 3-D environment.
Photosynth is potent mixture of two independent breakthroughs: the ability to reconstruct the scene or object from a bunch of flat photographs, and the technology to bring that experience to virtually anyone over the Internet.
The Photosynth viewer allows user to zoom in/out, view in 3D/2D and circle through next and previous frames. Below you can see some screenshots of 3D panoramas of Taj Mahal, Smith Tower and the Sphinx.
2008/08/22
para más infoLa elegí porque me pareció muy original que haya fotos en 3D.
"Facebook Helped Me Win," Claims Politician
In Tampa, Florida, one of the cities that comprises the megalopolis known as the Tampa Bay area, home to Busch Gardens, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and only minutes from beautiful beaches on the Gulf Coast of Florida (oh, and this author's stomping grounds, too), a local politician is giving credit to Facebook for his recent win in the primaries for the local County Commission.
On Facebook, the crowd is still very young, with an average age of 22.96 as of this February. Typically, the youth vote, although coveted, could not be counted on thanks to low turnout of young voters at the polls. However, this small time local election may prove to be one of the first examples of the huge impact Gen Y can have on the political process.
Now that many members of Gen Y are of voting age, their sheer numbers can no longer be ignored by politicians. The biggest generation since the baby boomers, Gen Y has been poorly characterized by some as lazy, unfocused, and self-centered - a generation that would just as soon stay home with mom and dad than go out and climb the corporate ladder. While it may be true that Gen Y has the good financial sense to maximize their time in rent-free accommodations, they are certainly proving themselves the opposite of lazy when it comes to involvement, be it social involvement, community involvement, or political involvement. Considering this recent "Facebook-powered" win, it could be that this generation is all talk and all action, too.
According to Rearden Killion Communications, the St. Petersburg advertising firm that handled the campaign of Kevin Beckner in the District Six democratic primary for the Hillsborough County Commission, the Facebook effort comprised of content, video production, and media buying valued at around $7000. There was also a Facebook app which let supporters put a campaign button on their own pages and provided a link to Beckner's page. The overall effort increased Beckner's Facebook group membership by 50 percent.
August 28, 2008
para más infoLa elegí porque yo uso Facebook y se que influye mucho porque un montón de gente lo usa, pero nunca imagine que la política se manejara con él.
YouTube To Squeeze More Money Out of Homepage
You’ll notice very few ad units while surfing YouTube, and none at all while watching videos contributed by ordinary folk like you or me. The reason? Google fears the legal repercussions of monetizing user generated content that may infringe on somebody else’s copyright.
But YouTube’s homepage is different since it merely displays thumbnails that may lead to infringing content. And it has capitalized on that page by selling a video ad unit in the upper right-hand corner for $175,000 per day (plus a commitment to buy $50,000 more in advertising elsewhere on YouTube or Google).
August 28, 2008
para más infoLa elegí porque YouTube es una empresa muy importante en Internet, y esta noticia me resultó muy interesante.
Facebook just added another extremely useful feature for users, and in doing so took out a slew of applications that do that same thing. You can now get a weekly email telling you, simply, which friends have birthdays coming up
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President elect Obama will bring the President's weekly "fireside chat" into the 21st century by offering it not just on the radio, but in video on YouTube as well. It's as if the new populist President really cares whether the next generation has a connection to what he's doing. That's where the people are - on YouTube, on MySpace and on Facebook.
If you're flying out of Los Angeles or Orange County airports next week, make sure your mobile phone is charged and ready to go - especially if you've purchased a new mobile boarding pass from American Airlines. AA, following in the footsteps of Continental and Delta Airlines, last week announced the option to have your boarding pass sent directly to your mobile phone or PDA, in an attempt to save paper and money, and speed things up for travelers.
