I've managed to not do anything work related this morning, and I'm so close to making it until lunch I figured I'd post something. I rarely think of Microsoft as being cool, and I'm a big fan of most things Google. But apparently Microsoft has been busy. Check these out:

This is Photosynth, something Microsoft labs has been working on. It stitches a bunch of photographs taken at a given location together. Sounds kinda lame, until you realize it does it in 3D! The interface is sweet, letting you zoom in and out, and selecting all sorts of different view points of the same object from all the photos that it's processed. It's hard to explain, but definitely worth checking it out. There's only a few set scenes you can check out right now, but the idea is that in the future you'd be able to do an image search for something, and then all the resulting images would be pieced together to create a 3D environment for you to explore. This could do wonders for the porn industry, but I shudder to think what would become of all those Paris Hilton up-skirt photos.

This one's pretty badass too, and outside of the cost I'd definitely get one. It's called Microsoft Surface and is actually supposed to go on sale late this year. Who knows if that's true, but there are some really cool videos of it in action. It's a computer, sort of, but looks like a coffee table. It's all touch screen based and becomes a hub for all things digital. Want to check out all the pictures you just took from your vacation? Place your digital camera on the table and it displays them all. Want to move those pictures to your PDA? Place your PDA on the table, and drag the picture with your finger into your PDA. You can look up map directions and then drag them to your phone. It's interaction reminds me of Tom Cruise in Minority Report, except for it being a table and not a hologram. It seems very cool except I wonder how well people will adapt to giving their coffee tables so much more attention.

Sigh. Is the day over yet? I'm running out of ways to procrastinate.