by Jeff Greene / …and yes, I’m a PC . Photokina is the largest international photography trade show in the world and this year Microsoft is once again proud to be a major part of it. Held every two years in Cologne, Germany, Photokina attracts a diverse cross-section of photographers, manufacturers, and media who are focused on photography and digital imaging. Taking place September 23-28, 2008, the trade fair is the largest in the world for imaging and covers everything from image capture, editing,

- by Jeff Greene Detective Stella Bonasera (Melina Kanakaredes) and computer expert Adam Ross (A.J. Buckley) use Photosynth to investigate the death of a New York prep school guidance counselor on CSI: New York Wednesday night on CBS. Photo: Randy Tepper, CBS Demonstrating that Microsoft Research projects have potential real-world applications, Photosynth , imaging software developed by Microsoft Live Labs, is featured prominently and accurately in this Wednesday's episode of CSI: New York ( Season

The Photosynth Team describes a "hidden" switch that activates Autoplay on a Photosynth collection , triggering Photosynth to automatically advance through the images in a tour that will take you through every photo in the set. Rob La Gesse, in the comments of the Photosynth blog, describes a VB6 app that he whipped up to turn Photosynth into a screen saver. Rob, I covet your screen saver! Could you post it somewhere? :) [Update: I wrote a PhotoSynth screensaver ]

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