Microsoft kills off Photosynth mobile apps, still alive and well in the browser

Microsoft has announced it is killing off its Photosynth apps for iOS and Windows phones. Instead, Microsoft is sending users to its new browser-based Photosynth Preview technology, claiming it to be a more ’immersive way to capture a place than the spherical panoramas that our apps produce’.

Microsoft’s Photosynth technology was the product of a collaboration between Microsoft’s Live Labs and a research project of Noah Snavely, a student at the University of Washington.

Summed up, the technology uses image analysis and pattern recognition technologies to create a three-dimensional model of environments using nothing but still images. Below is a Photosynth captured in Tartu, Estonia by user mikikytabahju.

Microsoft says the apps will continue to work if you have them installed already, but will no longer be available for download in their respective app stores and no longer supported going forward.

As always, all uploads to Microsoft’s Photosynth services will be able to be done privately or publicly.

(via DPReview)

---

Image credits: Screenshot used under Creative Commons