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just hat a great time toying around with PicLens, a browser-extension that displays image-streams in a semi-3D environment. controlling the image-stream is easy: use the scrollbar to swift through pictures quickly and smoothly, zoom using the mouse-wheel.

PicLens is available for Firefox, IE, Safari, works fullscreen, and basically supports any website offering RSS-feeds with enclosures (f.e. flickr, photobucket, smugmug). There’s also support for YouTube and Amazon.

currently in private beta, Teapotters is a community for 3D-artists sharing their creations. models are rendered in browser using the 3D Life Player-plugin.

10 Minute Mail allows users to generate a temporary email-adress which is automatically destroyed after 10 minutes. great for avoiding spam of all kinds.

P-Mail - a paper-based eMail-template by Gary Kemble

interesting piece at Read/WriteWeb about the current state of 3D-interfaces on the Web. considering that VRML was first published more than 10 years ago (1994), it’s a bit disillusioning that 3D-concepts don’t have a stronger standing in mainstream applications yet. nontheless, the BBC announced plans of implementing a virtual world aimed towards kids earlier today.

Photosynth - a Microsoft Labs technology prototype first seen in july - has been released into public preview on the last day of this years web 2.0 summit. the active-x-based software analyzes & arranges numerous pictures of one location in a 3D-space, making pictures browseable in a unique and gorgeous way. the preview is limited to predefined image-sets (expect to see Piazza San Marco or San Pietro like you never did before) and doesn’t support user-uploaded scenarios. nonetheless, recommended eye-candy - unfortunately for internet explorer 6.x/7x only.

those of you badly missing their second life during work may respire: Fabjectory produces amazing 3D-printings with full textures of SL-avatar models to put on your desk. prints are starting at USD 75$ for a 5inch figurine, support for 3d-models exported from other games/software than SL is planned as well.

(Via 3pointD)

as read on Michael Martine’s blog, Microsoft Live Labs is developing an innovative approach on organizing photo-collections. their tech-preview Photosynth claims to automatically organize photos in 3D-space by recognizing particular features like a window-frame, or a doorhandle in images. using algorithmic simulation of depth-perception, Photosynth calculates the 3D-positions for each of the images, which can then be browsed in a 3D-environment. if this seemingly-complicated algorithms work as good as the promo-video (highly recommended!) suggests, upcoming products using the Photosynth-technology (remember, this is a tech-preview) could be quite hot… just imagine connecting your holiday-photos of Venice with those of thousand other users all over the world - the resulting 3D-collage would be impressing.

if you want to stay up-2-date with Photosynth, the development-team has setup a blog - good to see that Robert Scoble definitely left his mark on Microsoft!

danish tv- & radio-boadcaster dr.dk offers a fun toy called Virtual Replay. the shockwave-based application allows to playback 3D-renderings of all goals shot in the fifa worldcup 2006. the user-interface is using danish language but it’s pretty easy to figure out the buttons for changing camera-perspective or setting playback-speed (below is a shot of argentina defeating serbia 6:0).