Who said that Microsoft isn’t doing anything cool these days? Oh wait, that was probably me. In light of the iPhone and absolutely everything Google does, who could blame me? But I was wrong! If you haven’t seen this product, check out their new Photosynth technology. In the words of our own Dan Dooley, it’s just sick.

Photosynth is a product of Microsoft’s Live Labs. On the Live Labs site they claim to “believe that the Internet is as important as the Industrial Revolution or the Renaissance. Our mission is to help realize this vision by advancing the state-of-the-art in Internet products and technology. We are scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs with a passion for building and understanding complex things, but with an eye towards simplicity. And above all else, we aspire to bring together the online community to make the world a better place.” Or, if I may paraphrase, they try to “be more like Google.” Or maybe to be tongue-in-cheek, to “do less evil”. Dang, I’m doing it again.

The Photosynth product essentially takes photos of something (object, place, Chevy Chase, whatever) and analyzes them for common traits and similarities and then makes a 3D-ish view of that object. It’s really one of those things you have to check out to really “get”. So good for you Microsoft, now make Outlook 2007 actually work and I’ll stop sending you all that hate mail.

* Thanks to our friend Jason @ Target for letting me know about this!