Seadragon by Microsoft

Microsoft has always been the leader in innovation. Without them, MS Office and the all powerful Windows Operating System will never be possible.

Although Microsoft has hit quite a snag a few times for the past years, it is still impossible to play down Microsoft’s role in pushing forward online technology today.

The reason why Microsoft has been under fire or has received a good number of criticisms later is their inability to be innovative.

Apple, with the help of Steve Jobs was able to come up with highly innovative application and products. Their updates and products for the past few years have changed the way we look at gadgets and online experience.

The world of Open Source has also been thinking out of the box and was able to produce applications and variety of OS for practical uses.

Microsoft on the other hand just stood where they were a few years ago watching and trying to emulate what everyone has already thought of.

Just recently, Microsoft through their Live Labs released an iPhone and iTouch specific application called Seadragon. This application could help these gadgets users zoom into photos and fast.

These are already offered in iPhone but what makes it different and remarkable is that it will help you get into photos that have larger file sizes.

The browser will be able to seamlessly transfer from one photo to another. Websites can also be explored through this application. Best of all, this application is available for every iPhone and iTouch user for free.

But this news is not just for iPhone and iTouch owners. This is also great news for developers.

Seadragon Mobile is available for iPhone and iTouch but Seadragon Ajax is another story which is even more interesting especially for online application and website owners.

Seadragon Ajax is a small but highly useful online tool that will transform parts of your website into “zoomable” interface.

This is highly useful for your photos and other content if you might require users to look more in the photo. What’s more is that the application will transform your photo into 3D which will provide better view of your photos and website.

This can also be done through their alternative application, Deep Zoom Composer. But if you want to have the 3D functionality, you need to upload your photos to Photosynth which will help in reconfiguring your photo into 3D.

This application alone could truly get Microsoft back on tract. Although it will not remove the developer’s weariness of the past of Microsoft, this should be a good start.

Live Labs has also promised that this would be the start of something big. Live Labs will be coming out with more applications that might amaze us once more on what Microsoft could truly create.

But there is a question with this development. Of all the platforms, why Apple? Microsoft could have developed an application like this for Windows Mobile. For now, we will just have to contend ourselves with this small but significant offering from Microsoft.