Microsoft is a little like the General Motors of technology. The software giant is, of course, much more successful, financially and in market share, than the troubled auto maker. But, as at GM, Microsoft's very size -- over 90,000 employees -- and its bureaucratic structure often make the company seem more stolid and less innovative than smaller, nimbler rivals like Google and Apple.

This contrast has appeared sharper in recent years, as Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system received a tepid criticalresponse compared with Apple's Leopard platform and as the company's Live Web search service has slipped further behind Google's. In addition, Microsoft's cellphone software, Windows Mobile, looks old and creaky compared with Apple's sleek iPhone and Google's forthcoming Android mobile operating system.

But innovation does exist at Microsoft's sprawling Redmond, Wash., campus. For instance, last year's daring and radical redesign of Microsoft Office has been a critical and commercial success.

Now, there's a sort of guerrilla team inside Microsoft designed to churn out innovative products more often and more rapidly. Called Live Labs, the unit is a small operation that aims to turn technology theories into real, Web-based products relatively quickly. It has only about 125 employees, and even that modest number is broken up into smaller teams tackling specific projects.

This week, Microsoft Live Labs is releasing its first broad consumer Web service, called Photosynth. This service turns multiple photos of a scene or site -- say, an art gallery or a building -- into a 3-D scene you can virtually 'walk' through on the Web.

Unlike a simple 2-D panorama, which many photo programs can create from several pictures, a Photosynth creation, called a 'synth,' is a virtual 3-D environment. It gives you the feeling you are in the middle of a room looking around, or circumnavigating a building or object. You can travel through a scene both laterally and vertically, and zoom in to see detailed, higher-resolution views of objects inside the synth, such as paintings on a wall.

For instance, you don't just see a long, flat picture of Stonehenge or the Grand Canal in Venice. You are made to feel you are there, moving through these places, looking up at the sky or down at the ground, and pausing to examine more closely a particular stone, boat or building.

Such 3-D walk-through images have been around for awhile; they are used on some real-estate Web sites, for example, to show houses virtually. But Photosynth allows anyone to create them using any standard digital camera, and even using pictures you already possess that weren't created with Photosynth in mind. You could even use photos of the same site taken by several people. The software will analyze the pictures, figure out which ones overlap and in what order, and then turn those shots that match up into a 3-D synth.

Photosynth, based on technology Microsoft acquired in 2006, is entirely free, and it's entirely based on the Web, at photosynth.net (where it will be launched at midnight EST Thursday). At that site you can view not only your own synths, but the synths created by every other Photosynth user.

I've been testing this service for about a week, and while it has its flaws, I believe that Photosynth offers a dramatic new way to use your photos and to share them with others.

Photosynth works within a Web browser, using a small plug-in you install. Currently, it works only in Windows, using Microsoft's own Internet Explorer browser or its rival, Firefox. A Macintosh version is in the works, but for now, you can't even view others' synths in the Mac operating system.

When Photosynth works right, the results are wonderfully satisfying. But it takes some skill to get a set of photos the service can match up well, a quality Microsoft calls being 'synthy.' Ideally, portions of each slice of a 3-D scene should show up in at least three photos, with 50% overlap between them. After you upload your pictures and Photosynth does its best to make them into a 3-D scene, the service assigns them a percentage number that indicates how synthy they were.

In my tests, I tried both collections of photos I already possessed and some I snapped with Photosynth in mind. My pictures of a piazza in Verona, Italy, were only 38% synthy, while ones I took of a hotel room specifically for Photosynth use were 73% synthy.

One gripe I had was that Photosynth doesn't tell you how synthy your pictures are until after you have uploaded them and waited until the system merges them, a process that can take a long time over a slow Internet connection. It would be much better if the service could tell you in advance how synthy the pictures are. Another objection is that Photosynth has no privacy settings. All your synths are open to viewing by everyone who uses the service.

But, overall, Photosynth is an impressive new way to view and share photos, and an encouraging sign that innovation and creativity still live in Redmond.

微软(Microsoft)有点像是科技领域的通用汽车(General Motors)。当然，这个软件巨头无论是在财务状况还是市场份额上都要比那个陷入困境的汽车制造商成功得多。不过，和通用汽车一样，微软的规模──员工人数已逾9万──及其官僚体系常常让这家公司看上去比规模较小的竞争对手谷歌(Google)和苹果公司(Apple)更加迟钝，更缺乏创新。

由于微软的Windows Vista操作系统获得的评论不及苹果的Leopard平台热烈，其Live Web互联网搜索服务和谷歌的差距也不断加大，近年来，创新性上的对比越来越鲜明。此外，与苹果光滑的iPhone和谷歌即将推出的手机操作系统Android相比，微软的手机软件Windows Mobile看起来要老笨些。

不过在微软位于华盛顿州雷德蒙德的大片园区里，确实存在着创新。举例来讲，去年Microsoft Office进行了大胆、激进的重新设计，无论是在口碑方面还是商业上都大获成功。

现在，微软内部有个专门开发创新产品的"游击队"，其任务就是更快地设计出更多创新产品。该部门名为Live Labs，它致力于更快地把科技理论转化成现实的、基于Web的产品。这个小组只有约125个人，而且还进一步分成了研究不同具体项目的若干小组。

本周，微软的Live Labs将推出首个面向大众消费者的Web服务──Photosynth。这项服务能将一个场面或是场所──比如一个画廊或是一座建筑物──的多张照片转换成三维场景，让你在Web上能有置身其中之感。

与很多照片软件都能用若干张相片创建的二维全景照不同，Photosynth的产物synth是虚拟三维场景。它能让你获得在一个房间中四下张望、或是环顾一座建筑物或一个物体时的视觉感受。你能水平或是垂直地穿越一个场景，还能以更高分辨率放大观看synth里的物体，比如墙上的画。

举例来讲，你不仅可以看到巨石阵或威尼斯大运河的一张长长的二维图片。你还能感觉身临其境，在各处走动，往上看天或是向下看地，或是停下来更细致地察看一块石头、一艘船或是一座建筑物。

这类三维场景的出现已经有一段时间了；比如有些房地产网站用它们来虚拟展示房屋。不过Photosynth使任何人都可以用任何标准的数码相机创建三维场景，甚至是利用不是特意为Photosynth而拍摄的已有图片。你甚至还能用不同人拍的同一个地方的照片。软件会对照片进行分析，找出哪些有重叠以及重叠的顺序，然后将那些匹配的图片转换成虚拟三维场景。

Photosynth的设计基于微软2006年收购的技术，它是完全免费的，而且完全基于Web，网站是photosynth.net（将于美东时间周四午夜推出）。在这个网站上，你不仅可以看到自己制作的虚拟三维场景，还可以看到所有其他用户的作品。

我已经对这项服务测试了大约一周，虽然它有一些缺点，但我相信它提供了一种利用照片及分享照片的全新方法。

安装了一个小插件后，你就可以在网络浏览器中使用Photosynth了。目前，它只能在Windows操作系统下运行，可用的浏览器只有微软的Internet Explorer及其竞争对手的Firefox。用于苹果电脑的版本还在研发之中，目前在苹果操作系统中你甚至无法看到其他人制作的synth。

当Photosynth正常工作时，结果令人非常满意。不过需要一些技巧才能找到匹配良好的一组照片，微软将匹配度高的照片称为达到了synthy。理想状况下，一个三维场景中的每个局部都应该在至少三张照片中有所体现，而且相互之间要有50%的重叠。在你上传了照片，Photosynth将它们转换成三维场景之后，系统会给这些照片用百分制打个分数，表示匹配的程度有多高。

在我的测试中，我用了已有的照片，也试过了为Photosynth而特意拍的快照。其中意大利维罗纳一个广场的照片匹配度只有38%，而为Photosynth专门拍摄的酒店房间照片却有高达73%匹配度。

令我不满意的是，只有在你上传了照片并等系统将它们合并起来之后，Photosynth才会告诉你照片的匹配度。而这个过程在网速较慢的时候要花很长时间。如果这个服务能事先告诉你照片有多匹配就好了。还有一个不足就是，Photosynth没有隐私设置。你创建的所有三维场景都能被任何一位使用Photosynth服务的用户看到。

不过，总的来讲，Photosynth是看照片、分享照片的一种令人耳目一新的新途径，而且也是展现雷德蒙德仍在创新的一个鼓舞人心的迹象。
关键字:计算机英语
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