Microsoft's Blaise Aguera y Arcas demonstrated some stunning augmented reality integration inside of Bing Maps at the (Technology Entertainment Design) TED conference last week.
Blaise Aguera y Arcas worked on the Seadragon technology at Microsoft after the company acquired it in 2006. Seadragon, now part of Microsoft's Live Labs, is designed to retrieve large amounts of data using a fast, seamless, zoom based interface. The technology has since been used to power Microsoft's 3D photo application Photosynth which was popularised during President Obama's inauguration event. Microsoft has also used Seadragon technology in applications like Pivot.
Blaise's talk at TED 2010 last week was met with great applause and excitement from the audience. The Microsoft worker demonstrated stunning integration of augmented reality maps. Blaise demonstrated real-time processing of video taken with a smart phone inside street-view type maps. The demo included a live video overlaid on static images of a market inside of Bing Maps. Photosynth and Worldwide telescope integration was also demonstrated as part of the Bing Maps showcase. Although the features are not widely available yet it provides a glimpse of what Microsoft is currently working on.
A Microsoft spokesperson confirmed to Neowin, "While we have released the Flickr Crowd Source integration for Seattle, San Francisco and Vancouver, we haven’t released timeframes or details for the other features demoed at Ted."
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