by Jeff Greene / The Microsoft® WorldWide Telescope is an amazing and innovative web-based application that enables your computer to serve as a virtual desktop telescope. By accessing stunning imagery from the best ground and space-based telescopes around the world, viewers can choose nearly any section of the cosmos visible from Earth for a seamless exploration of the universe. There are numerous galaxies, planets, and star clusters to explore, as well as pre-recorded Tours by world renowned astronomers

Big - We're talking GIGApixels of data (3.7 gigpixels in this image thumbnailed here) Wide - Wide enough - like 150 degrees - that presenting the "right" projection of part of the image is non-trivial Deep - So deep that high dynamic range comes into play - over 100x variation - as you zoom and pan around. Is this a single image of a skyline... or a photo of a crane operator? How do you capture images with these qualities? and then How do you view them when you've got 'em? When I was in Seattle for

I'm watching the Bill Gates CES keynote today. For me, the coolest announcement is the Microsoft Home Server . Automated backup of all your home PC data, connectivity to other PCs, Zune, XBox, and also remote connectivity without complexity. I created a similar home server setup myself using a low-power PC, Windows Server 2003, and a series of virtual machines (as discussed previously ) -- but the Windows Home Server emphasis on simplicity would have saved me a lot of time. And I'd get things like

The first Photosynth technology preview has hit the web! Today, you can visit the Photosynth site to explore four different collections of photos in 3D space. Back in August, the Photosynth team announced their work at the SIGGRAPH 2006 conference, along with a lot of amazing Microsoft research into visualization . And now, just a few months later, if you're using IE6 or IE7 you can try it yourself! (Let me pre-empt the inevitable comment: the Photosynth team makes very clear that they intend to