Microsoft’s PhotoSynth tool is jaw-droppingly awesome. But, because it’s a Microsoft project, the technology is unlikely to appear on some of your favorite non-Microsoft online apps, like Google Maps or Flickr.

However, our friends at ReadWriteWeb stumbled across a very similar tool — at least in terms of the end result — developed by the University of North Carolina in conjunction with Swiss university, ETH-Zurich.

The team has developed a method for creating 3D models by pulling in millions of photographs from Flickr and using some fancy algorithms to generate 3D models of local landmarks. Perhaps even more impressive the results can be generated using a single computer in under a day.

Project lead Jan-Michael Frahm touts the project’s efficiency saying, “our technique would be the equivalent of processing a stack of photos as high as the 828-meter Dubai Towers, using a single PC, versus the next best technique, which is the equivalent of processing a stack of photos 42 meters tall — as high as the ceiling of Notre Dame — using 62 PCs. This efficiency is essential if one is to fully utilize the billions of user-provided images continuously being uploaded to the internet.”

While the results are cool and would make an impressive addition to any number of geo-based services, more serious use cases include helping disaster workers get a better idea of where they’re headed and the extent of damage.

So far the researchers have released a movies demonstrating the technique on landmarks in both Rome (get it? built in a day…) and Berlin, and the results are impressive. For more information on how the process works, check out the UNC website.

See Also:

• Photosynth Returns With More Mind-Blowing Photo Tricks
• New Flickr Is Bigger, Wider and Uncut
• ‘Unwrap Mosaics’ Take Video Editing to a New Level

The web has all sorts of data, but it’s sorely missing yours. If you request an account from Daytum, you can change that.

The site lets its users collect data about themselves and share it via beautiful charts. Track your coffee consumption, how often you exercise, or anything else that matters to you.

One of the site’s creators, Nicholas Felton creates a personal annual report each year that shows his year in data. Through gorgeous visualizations, Felton shows off the mundane. And now you can, too.

Felton gave a talk about the history of Daytum at the Future of Web Design. His slides are embedded below:

| View | Upload your own

Using the site is super easy. You can drop in, add some data, and drop out. There’s also a Twitter submission system, for adding your data on the go.

The site is so simple, yet has a number of options for users. There’s lots of room for improvement, such as an API to allow some automated inclusion of data. Overall, this is a fun, easy-to-use site that’s worth checking out.

See also:

• Google Data Visualization Opens a New Web
• Google Trends Takes on the Flu
• Google Spruces up Spreadsheets
• Mint’s New Investment Graphs Showcase Personal Recessions

Sprint’s beautiful dashboard is full of widgets showing a glimpse into what’s going on in the world. Among the things it tracks: sticky notes being produced, organ transplant operations, and temperature around the world.

There’s an info pane for each, explaining where the data comes from. Most appear to be based on estimates (nobody is counting each coffee cup as it’s being produced), but what if it really was all live?

If the future of the web is open APIs, this will be possible. What if we all had a dashboard like this, connecting us to the data that matters to us?

[via Daring Fireball]

See also:

• Yahoo’s Home Page Reborn as a ‘Dashboard’ for the Web
• WordPress 2.7 in 63 Seconds
• Revamped Google Analytics Improves Traffic Tracking

The point: the technical site of creating web sites is often about showing data, but users don’t see it that way.

In his presentation Experience is the Product, Peter Merholz has a great series of slides, which I’ve summarized in the above graphic. Even though data is sometimes central to a website, it shouldn’t look like data.

Unfortunately, there are plenty of examples of websites putting the data first. This screenshot comes from a DZone article, appropriately about databases. I would guess that first name and last name are fields in their database. Separating the name into two pieces can be useful, but only behind the scenes. For example, alphabetizing by last name is possible when it’s stored separately.

The way DZone shows the author name isn’t very useful. It starts with the data, rather than the way the user expects to see the data (that is, without the field labels). Yes, this example is nit-picky, but keep an eye out and you’ll notice sites that put the data first. Maybe you’ll even notice yourself doing it, then find a way to make the data blend into the interface.

See also:

• Jeff Veen on Empowering Users Through Design
• 50 Steps to Better Design
• Information Architecture Tutorial

Insights does beyond Trends, with map visualization and categories. Like Trends, you can download the data for your own number crunching.

Here’s an example of how Insights lets you dig a little deeper. Say I wanted to find out when and where users have been searching for Sam Adams, the beer (and yes, the colonial U.S. statesman):

Well, there’s another Sam Adams I haven’t mentioned. I happen to know about him because he’s the mayor-elect of my home city, Portland, Oregon. Check out how blue Oregon is in the map, and how the graph ticked up dramatically around our May 20 election.

With Insights, I can restrict to just the beer by selecting the Food and Drink category. With that done, the graph and the map make a little more sense:

One feature from Trends that is lacking in Insights is the news view. This would have been useful to someone who doesn’t know about my city’s new mayor. In Trends, the graph of search term popularity is labeled with news stories that might explain the move up or down. Google Finance also has this feature, but it’s hit and miss correlating stocks with press releases.

User searching seems more rational than investing. For example, this Google trends graph explains the surge in search for “obama” in June with a link to news.

Insights doesn’t.

The other Insights features make up for it. Use it to determine which locales would be most open to your product/service or which presidential candidate has more buzz in contentious Michigan.

This is normally the spot where we would beg for an API, to automate our research, or build something even cooler on top of this data. Well, we might not have to. From what I can see, the download option acts as a de facto API. The same arguments sent to the web version can be sent to a CSV (Comma Separated File) version.

But that might not be the most exciting part of Google Insights. Notice in its logo there’s a “for search” tacked onto the end of the name. Also, the URL is /insights/search instead of just /insights. That suggests we might be seeing Google Insights for Something Else down the line. Any guesses?

See also:

• Google Trends Adds Site-Comparison Feature
• Yahoo Trumps Google With New Data Retention Policy
• AOL’s Data Dump

The taskforce describes the release as “gigabytes of new or previously invisible public information.” The data is from census, health care and education sources. Data is aggregated and does not contain any personal information.

This public information release should be a welcome news to mashup artists, whose work is sometimes restricted by the amount of data available. It is also a welcome sign that a government group understands it may not have all the answers. While releasing data is common, encouraging people to use it, and rewarding them for contributions, is not.

Among the APIs recommended by the taskforce are Google Maps and Flickr. We’re looking forward to seeing what comes of this competition.

See also:

• New Digg API Means More Mashups
• Google Maps Adds User Mashups