Microsoft Live Labs: Photosynth

I'm really surprised I haven't seen more buzz about Photosynth from Microsoft Live Labs. Photosynth "takes a large collection of photos of a place or an object, analyzes them for similarities, and then displays the photos in a reconstructed three-dimensional space, showing you how each one relates to the next." This is the most "holy crap, lookit this!" new technology that I've seen in a long, long time.

Go visit the site and give it a try. They have a growing number of photo collections, but I recommend starting with the Piazza San Marco, Venice collection.

Google Does It Again - Drag and Drop Driving Directions

Google Maps introduced draggable driving directions sometime in the past couple of days. Don't like the route suggested? Then just drag the blue route line to another road and have it all recalculate automagically. This is the same type of capability as available in Garmin MapSource, but as one would expect from Google, the interaction design is easier and more elegant.

Check out the video introducing the feature.