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Sneak Peek at Microsoft's WorldWide Telescope

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Sun Mar 02, 2008 06:31 AM
from the eye-on-the-sky dept.
Space Microsoft
Ted.com has a great sneak peek at Microsoft's new WorldWide Telescope project. In this video, presented by Roy Gould and Curtis Wong, you are able to see a combined view of satellites and telescopes from all over the planet and nearby space. The compiled image is rendered using Microsoft's new high-performance "Visual Experience Engine" that allows users to pan and zoom across the night sky seamlessly.
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  • why don't they just combine it with DRM and get the full packages - watching us, watching them, watching us...

  • This article has got to be a hose. I mean, Microsoft doing something both useful and cool?

    Well, as they say: even a blind squirrel finds an acorn now and then...

  • The Video (Score:4, Insightful)

    by aembleton (324527) <.aembleton. .at. .gmail.com.> on Sunday March 02 2008, @07:07AM (#22614908) Homepage
    Curtis Wong explains what you can do, 5.15 into the video. Before that it is a load of boring talk about how it will allow us all to explore the universe and increase our understanding, etc but with some cool pictures of what you can expect to see from the world wide telescope. It will be a free download this spring from http://worldwidetelescope.org/ [worldwidetelescope.org]

    I for one, am looking forward to this. I'm sure someone will ask if it can run on Linux. I've no idea, but I can't see it being that hard for Wine to get it working.
    • I especially like the part where it says its the biggest thing to happen to astronomy since Gallileo. I didn't think TED was about cheerleading for corporate Johnny-Come-Latelies.
    • You know, I'd be surprised if it runs on XP, let alone Linux.

      I'm the "Microsoft Visual Experience Engine" has some core dependency like DirectX 10, or whatever, that is a big pain in the ass to port. (Not to mention, corporate strategies behind Vista and all that).
  • In related news Microsoft has issued a press release indicating that users looking up are taking revenue from Microsoft, who now owns the copyright to 100% of the sky. "As we all know DRM is a critical issue today. If people could just look up any time they pleased there would be no need for our new software. Innovation would be stiffled and we have scientists who say the sky might fall." said Microsoft product manager I M ATwat. "For many years we at Microsoft have endured casual astronomers looking up at
    • Can't copyright the sky; it's public domain to begin with. Can't patent it, as there are numerous examples of prior art. Unless MS is planning on getting into the aerospace industry (always a possibility; watch for falling flaming debris) why would they actually do this? So their programmers can actually see what it looks like outside?

      Also, I want to report a bug with the sky software. Sometimes this giant ball of fire becomes visible, and looking at it hurts my eyes.
      • Maybe they've got sanity projects for their programmers: let them do cool stuff, too, every once in a while. Maybe they just figure it's worth making investments on neat tech without quite knowing for sure what it will end up being used for. If anyone's got enough resources to do that, it's MS.
      • Can't copyright the sky; it's public domain to begin with.

        Take my love. Take my land.
        Take me where I cannot stand.
        I don't care, I'm still free.
        You can't take the sky from me.

        Take me out to the black.
        Tell 'em I ain't comin' back.
        Burn the land And boil the sea.
        You can't take the sky from me.

        Have no place I can be since I found Serenity.
        But you can't take the sky from me.
  • The technology looks very cool, but Microsoft just can't resist spinning even where there doesn't seem to be any need at all. Check out the FAQ at worldwidetelescope: http://worldwidetelescope.org/buzz/FAQ.aspx [worldwidetelescope.org]

    Q. When did Microsoft first starting looking at the sky?
    A. For 16 years, Microsoft has invested, and will continue to invest, in long-term, broad-based research through Microsoft Research. WorldWide Telescope is built on work that started with Jim Gray's SkyServer and his contributions to Sloan Digital Sky Survey.

    Sky Server (a portal to the Sloan Digital Sky Survey) was first released in 2001. Aside from the poor grammar in the question, reading that answer just made my skin crawl...

  • A little about the WWT (Score:5, Informative)

    by gsn (989808) on Sunday March 02 2008, @07:45AM (#22614996)
    I've been very lucky to see this project from alpha to present because one of friends interned with the group and introduced me to them - its gone through some amazing development - I remember seeing this I think early 2007 - it looked more like Stellarium than anything else but just plane black with solid circles for stars and galaxies. It took forever to load images when you zoomed in. Must have crashed about 30 times in a five minute demo.

    Jonathan Fay (of MaximDL fame) showed it off at Table Mountain Star Party last year and they'd moved from that sky to a synthetic pre-rendered sky that would transition to real images from Hubble or other sources as you zoomed in.

    Saw it again at the American Astronomical Society Meeting this January in Austin and really got to play with it since they were right alongside the Harvard IIC booth. It was the first time they were using real imagery for the entire sky and it looked amazing and Jonathan was touting the tour facility.

    Its biggest trick in my mind though you didn't see in the video - one little slider that takes you from the Optical to the Infrared and Microwave and X-Ray sky. Simply blew me away.

    It already supports VOTable and FITS images and dozens of other formats that astronomers use and are becoming standards for enthusiastic hobbyists. You can take your own images and put them up on the same sky as data from Chandra or Swift or the best ground based data from MMT or Magellan or Keck. Now it starts to get really useful. The CfA at Harvard has been digitizing its old plates of sky images, Pan-STARRS will start operating sooner rather than later, SDSS has a ton of data already and LSST will be up in a few years imaging the entire sky every few nights. This is a monstrous amount of data and the system really gives you a way to search through it all very intuitively. I'd love the ability to click on a star in the sky and have all known spectra of it pop up along with references. Not quite there yet but it will be.

    This also makes it the best educational tool. There are projects like Las Cumbres and several schools and colleges have access to telescopes so this gives you a great tool with which to look at data and take your own data and do it in a way that doesn't require you learning how to use NED and SIMBAD and looking for papers on ADS. But I think the biggest thing it does is just blow you away with a sense of how large everything is, or perhaps how small you are in relation and I think that is a very powerful idea. I remember the first time I saw the Eames Power of Ten video - this takes that to a different level and is genuinely thought provoking.

    Quite simply the best thing I've ever seen out of Microsoft.
    • Its biggest trick in my mind though you didn't see in the video - one little slider that takes you from the Optical to the Infrared and Microwave and X-Ray sky. Simply blew me away.

      What about time ? Is there a means of moving forward and backwards in time ? (A lot of the interest in the Harvard Sky Patrol plate, for example, is that they sample the sky in the past.)
  • I'm not sure if that was just a lame demo, but that "telescope" is really not a big deal.

    It's basically one of the application I already had installed in my Linux box for years, but only with a bigger database. That can surely not be accounted as an invention, and certainly not as big an invention as the telescope 400 years ago.
  • Google Earth has had something like this for a long time now. Is this any better or is it just an expression of Microsoft's fear of Google and need to "me too" everything Google does?

  • Jim Gray gone missing (Score:5, Informative)

    by LS (57954) on Sunday March 02 2008, @09:43AM (#22615276) Homepage
    On a related note, Jim Gray [microsoft.com], the researcher behind the WorldWide Telescope, recently went missing [microsoft.com] on a sailing expedition. The search has already been suspended.

    LS
  • I hate to be so reactive to the things I have recently seen, but I wonder what would happen if you exposed this system to the autistic community? It seems like a lot of data that would do well to be digested by someone predisposed to taking it all in at once.
  • I tried it, but all I could see was the Blue Sky of Death !

    • Re:Question: (Score:4, Informative)

      by rindeee (530084) on Sunday March 02 2008, @06:44AM (#22614860)
      From Wikipedia's entry on Google Sky (which sites two articles on the matter): Google Sky is believed to be less expansive than its competitor WorldWide Telescope from Microsoft, which is regarded as significantly better.

    • Answer (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      How is this different from Google Sky?

      Google sky is from Google and the worldwide telescope is from Microsoft.

      hth

    • Q. What is WorldWide Telescope?
      A. The WorldWide Telescope (WWT) is a rich visualization environment that functions as a virtual telescope, bringing together imagery from the best ground- and space telescopes to enable seamless, guided explorations of the universe. WorldWide Telescope, created with Microsoft®'s high-performance Visual Experience Engine(TM), enables seamless panning and zooming across the night sky blending terabytes of images, data, and stories from multiple sources over the Internet into a media-rich, immersive experience.

      Couldn't find the same about Google Earth (Sky):

      Explore the sky with Google Earth

      Whether you're an astronomer or stargazer, Sky in Google Earth brings millions of stars and galaxies to your fingertips.

    • Re:Question: (Score:5, Informative)

      by MickDownUnder (627418) on Sunday March 02 2008, @07:30AM (#22614952)
      I believe it's using the Photosynth engine [ted.com]. I think the beauty of photosynth is that it is a self organising system for seamlessly navigating between photographs that gives you the illusion of animation. Microsoft's system can crawl web pages for material to add to the collage. So it does seem to be better" [channelregister.co.uk] than google sky as this system will be allowed continue to collect images published in astronomical papers and add these pages to the world wide telescope system.

      Make no mistake about it Photosynth is a world changing technology.
      • Make no mistake about it Photosynth is a world changing technology.

        Yes, it is, but it isn't new. It's nice that Microsoft has a cleaner and better implementation of it now and that better hardware makes it look smooth, but it's been around for nearly as long as images and networks.
          • I've been working with images and networks for a long time, and I've never seen anything that could even claim to do what Photosynth does automatically and seamlessly.

            These patents will likely be challenged if Microsoft tries to enforce them; I'm sorry, but you'll have to do your own prior art searches.

            Saying that computers *could* do something for a long time is nothing like having a product that actually does those things through a seamless user experience.

            That's quite right. And their implementation is
      • Taken from the web, eh? I hope they consider copyright issues then...
      • > Make no mistake about it Photosynth is a world changing technology.

        Finally! The cure for cancer? No? What, solves world hunger? Peace for mankind? Not even a better aspirin? What you say, a neat imaging trick? Your world must be very small.
    • Why, isn't it obvious? It's Windows-only. As far as Microsoft is concerned, that's a big advantage. For everybody else...
    • How is this different from Google Sky?

      Well, maybe the database is bigger. Or not. Oh, and you can switch the view to infrared and radar.

    • Re:oK... (Score:4, Funny)

      by I confirm I'm not a (720413) on Sunday March 02 2008, @06:51AM (#22614878) Journal

      D00d, I luv the way you say "Linuzz" instead on "Linux", and "Abble" instead of "Apple" (even if I don't really get "Abble") but you missed the obvious and oh-so-original "Open Sores" line that cracks me up everytime.

      Back on topic, Google [google.com] have already done this, Celestia [shatters.net] have already done this (and Celestia is free software - sorry, "open sores"), so what's *not* to bash about Microsoft (damn, that should be M$) arriving late to the party? What does Microsoft bring to the party that we don't already have - in spades - already? Fanbois?

      I know, I shouldn't feed the troll, but it was so cute, sitting there under the bridge...

    • So it's kind of like Google Earth, but not as useful. Seems these days, Microsoft is trying real hard to be altruistic.

      I think maybe it's more like Google Sky [google.com].
      • Most likely M$ is just trying to get more people to install 'Silverfish', you can pretty well bet that it will be locked to it.
        • Actually I don't believe it's using silverlight, which is a pity for linux dudes out there because whilst there is Linux support for Silverlight, I don't think there's linux support for Photosynth. Guess, you'll just have to be content with Google Sky ;)

    • Re:This is an invention? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by MickDownUnder (627418) on Sunday March 02 2008, @08:01AM (#22615032)
      Microsoft didn't invent it. They bought [nwsource.com] it.

      I think the thing that really ticks off the tech community about Microsoft, is that they don't really invent anything, they're just extrordinarily good and spotting excellent software early on, acquiring it and then marketing it better than any other company out there.

      • even worse (Score:4, Interesting)

        by nguy (1207026) on Sunday March 02 2008, @09:02AM (#22615178)
        The guy who founded the company has been filing a dozen patents on obvious ways of doing image zooming and multiple level of detail rendering. Buying the company, Microsoft got the software, the patents, and they also established that the patents are valuable.

        These people are real sleazeballs.

        http://www.google.com/patents?q=Blaise+Aguera+y+Arcas&btnG=Search+Patents [google.com]
        • I don't see MS using patents as a weapon, only for FUD and defense. I know that's kind of like saying the dragon only uses his teeth when close, but it's still true.

          Personally, I'm not that worried about patents. Being sued usually presupposes a certain level of affluence and comes with the territory. As a citizen of the USA, I'm am worried. The patent for 'Scanning a check and exchanging information about the scanned check' is going to cost everyone money and make a few people rich. It about makes me
          • I don't see MS using patents as a weapon, only for FUD and defense.

            Yeah, "defense" as in "if you don't do what we want, we'll sue so long and hard, your investors will run screaming and your startup will crumble". Here, "do" can be anything from "give us a cross-license agreement on your patents" to "sell your company to us".

            And because of cross-licensing agreements, Microsoft doesn't have to worry about any big competitor getting into a big fight with them.

            With competent lawyers and business people involv
            • Can you find me one historical example of Microsoft doing exactly that? Microsoft has historically used their patent portfolio LITERALLY as a defensive mechanism. When aggressive patent filers/enforcers come out swinging, THEN Microsoft brings out the portfolio, in much more of a "do you really want to pick the fight you think you want to pick"? Microsoft has not employed SCO-like tactics that I can recall. Perhaps I don't remember specific incidents that you are thinking of.
              • Funny that you mention SCO, as Microsoft was responsible [slashdot.org] for $50 million infusion [linux.com] to keep them alive. Choose your analogies carefully...

                LS
              • Microsoft has not employed SCO-like tactics

                Um, Microsoft employed SCO to employ SCO-like tactics, hello? Remember, several million dollars for "Unix licenses", several million dollars PIPE investments by way of Baystar and RBC, etc.

                Not to mention the "nice little operating system you have there, it'd be a shame if we had to enforce any of our 238 patents on it" tactics to spread FUD.
      • Google also acquired many of their recent products, including Google Earth. If these big companies want to buy all of this stuff and release it to the public for free, however, I'm not going to complain :)

    • Not true... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 02 2008, @07:51AM (#22615014)
      ...kindly RTFA: it consists of actual imagery, not a model of the imagery like Celestia... (karma whoring: off)
      • The guy in the video behaves like he, i'm sorry, Microsoft Microsoft Microsoft, invented the Philosopher's Stone. The only difference between them and a free project like Celestia is, the "scientists" from MS have the money to buy the newest space images. But "new" is something else.

      • ..kindly RTFA: it consists of actual imagery, not a model of the imagery like Celestia... (karma whoring: off)

        Yes, but why is this being presented as as advantage over 3D modeling?

        To answer my own question: A program like Celestia allows you to see hundreds of thousands of stars (or however many are in the database you are using). It allows you to "fly" to those stars, turn around and look back at our star from them, or see star configurations that are familiar to us on earth from other perspectives. Wha

    • Re:Eh... (Score:4, Funny)

      by rampant poodle (258173) on Sunday March 02 2008, @09:51AM (#22615312) Homepage
      As soon as I heard him say "holistic" I hit the back button. Learned a long time ago the term holistic us usually a codeword for inane bullshit.

      • Learned a long time ago the term holistic us usually a codeword for inane bullshit.
        Yes. And double the price. Don't forget double the price. That adjective always means more cost.

    • Wake me up when Microsoft buys the guys who invented the worldwide porn telescope, then I'll be impressed.
      And perhaps that should never be given smelloscope functionality...? Or perhaps that's exactly what it should have...?
    • Are you suggesting burning the land and boiling the sea are also in MSFTs plans?

      • Are you suggesting burning the land and boiling the sea are also in MSFTs plans?
        more like already attempted and partially implemented by purchasing competitors only to terminate their product lines along with promoting patent FUD via SCO and then their own IP threats/FUD. So yes, they have been working on burning the land and boiling the seas for quite some time.

        LoB

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