On January 20, 2009

Jan 19, 2009 11:40 GMT  ·  By
"Obama addresses the crowd at the Wilmington, Delaware train station," Microsoft revealed
   "Obama addresses the crowd at the Wilmington, Delaware train station," Microsoft revealed

Silverlight is not the sole Microsoft technology to get a spot light in prime time as Barack Obama will be sworn-in as the 44th President of the U.S. Come January 20, 2009, the Redmond company will not only make available online videos of the ceremony live and on demand, but will also be Photosynthing the entire event. Along with the content available via Silverlight, Microsoft will be using Photosynth in order to build what it has referred to as an immersive and detailed experience of the inauguration. In this context, the software giant has announced a partnership with CNN, designed to harvest thousands of digital images from the photographers covering the event, and create synths of the precise moment when President Obama takes the Oath of Office.

“From the vast sweep of the crowd to a close-up on the President’s hand on the Bible, every part of this historic scene will be frozen in time and presented in 3-D as only Photosynth can. Well placed CNN photographers will capture lots of detailed shots for this synth, and if you’re there, you can help make this an even more amazing experience by adding your perspective with your digital camera or camera phone,” a member of the Photosynth team revealed.

At the same time, Microsoft is ready to take the initiative one step further. In this context, the Redmond company is actually inviting attendants to send in their own images in order to be included in the final synth. The software giant is promising that the amateur photographs will be combined with the content available for CNN.

“Camera Phone. Take one photo of the moment when the President Elect raises his hand to take the Oath, and email it as soon as you can to [email protected]. Don’t worry if he’s too small to see clearly in your photo,” the Photosynth member added. “Digital Camera. Take three photos (wide-angle, mid-zoom, full-zoom) of the President Elect while he is being sworn in. As soon as you can get to an Internet connection, email them to us at [email protected]. Make sure your email message is less than 10MB in size. Break it into a couple of messages if your three photos combine to more than 10MB.”