Microsoft and Nikon Enter Into Patent Cross-Licensing Agreement

Agreement furthers Microsoft and Nikon collaboration on new products and features in digital imaging.

REDMOND, Wash., and TOKYO — Aug. 27, 2008 — Microsoft Corp. and Nikon Corp. have signed a patent cross-licensing agreement to further the development of each company’s current and future product lines.

The agreement covers digital cameras made by Nikon as well as a broad range of other consumer products each company manufactures and sells. The agreement was signed by representatives from both companies at Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond, Wash. Although the contents of the agreement have not been disclosed, the parties indicated that Microsoft is being compensated by Nikon.

Microsoft and Nikon have a long history of collaborating to bring high-quality, cutting-edge consumer products to the market, including wireless cameras and RAW processing technologies. The companies believe that this patent cross-licensing agreement will substantially benefit customers of consumer products including digital cameras. Both parties will be able to innovate openly with each other’s technologies, enabling new features and products to come to market.

“This agreement will extend and enhance our already successful, long-standing collaboration with Nikon, and will allow us to provide even better products to our customers,” said Josh Weisberg, director of the Rich Media Group at Microsoft.

“This agreement is another great example of how industry leaders are coming together to collaborate through intellectual property licensing, and by doing so enabling innovation that will ultimately benefit the consumer,” said Horacio Gutierrez, vice president of intellectual property and licensing at Microsoft. “We are proud of the quality of our broad, global patent portfolio, and we are pleased to be working with an industry leader such as Nikon.”

“At Nikon, we want to continue to lead the industry in pioneering photography solutions and give our customers access to innovative technology,” said Naoki Tomino, director, member of the board and General Manager of Intellectual Property Headquarters at Nikon. “This agreement is a natural extension of our long-standing relationship with Microsoft, and we look forward to collaborating and bringing exciting new products to the market.”

Microsoft and Nikon Enter Into Patent Cross-Licensing Agreement: Agreement furthers Microsoft and Nikon collaboration on new products and features in digital imaging.

Tthe first full release of Photosynth, is available now at photosynth.com. 

What is Photosynth? Photosynth takes a collection of regular photographs and reconstructs the scene or object in a 3-D environment.    

Start by checking out a few examples ..

• National Geographic did an a great synth of Stonehenge.  Normally you are not allowed inside the center ring of Stonehenge, but their photographers got special permission so you can experience it here.  Can you find the rabbit living at the base of one of the stones?
• Ever wanted to check out a Ferrari 575 Superamerica up close?  We snuck into the local dealership and shot a synth just for you.
• You don’t need to go to all the way to London to see the London skyline—you can see it right here at Legoland
• Imagine stumbling across a guy proposing to his girlfriend right in the middle of Seattle’s Pike Place Market. Now imagine making a synth of it.

Want to create you own synths  check out the photography guide for some tips.  Or just watch our short how to synth video which gives you a quick overview of the best way to take pictures that will make a good synth.

For those of you who have seen the videos or tried our tech preview, you can experience synths that we made in the lab or Explore great synths from others then you can create a few of your own.  

Because Photosynth is so new, you will probably run into an occasional bug or hiccup.  So if you have a brilliant idea or find a bug, please let us know.  We’ll do our best to address them.

And be sure to keep watching this space, where we’ll share what we’ve learned about making great synths, talk with some members of the Photosynth team, provide synthing suggestions for advanced users and point you to some of the cooler synths that people are building.

Lenovo unveils ThinkPad W700 laptop geared to pro photographers

Monday, August 11, 2008 | by Rob Galbraith

Lenovo today has unveiled the ThinkPad W700, a widescreen 17 inch Windows laptop that has been developed expressly for the working digital photographer. In addition to CPU options that include Intel's new mobile quad core processor, a maximum of 8GB of RAM, up to three internal hard drives (two if you don't want to forsake the optical disc drive) and top-end Nvidia Quadro FX 3700M graphics, the W700 features an integrated screen calibrator and mini Wacom tablet plus both SD and CompactFlash card slots.

Full article at the following link

Rob Galbraith DPI: Lenovo unveils ThinkPad W700 laptop geared to pro photographers