Microsoft Live Labs’ Photosynth turns multiple photos of a site into a 3-D scene you can virtually “walk” through on the Web. The service is a dramatic new way to use your photos and to share them with others, writes Walter S. Mossberg.
In his annual fall PC buyer’s guide, Walt focuses on computers and laptops for consumers whose budgets have been shrunk due to the global economic slowdown.
Walt reviews the latest entrants in the “netbook” category–devices that are between a laptop and a smart phone in size and versatility–and finds some compelling choices.
Walt reviews the hotly anticipated BlackBerry Storm, the first BlackBerry model without a physical keyboard. Typing and navigation require tapping on glass, just as users do on the iPhone. Verizon will be selling the Storm for $250 with a two-year contract, though a $50 mail-in rebate can bring the price down close to the $199 that Apple charges for the base model of the iPhone.
The companies behind Linux netbooks have made great strides in improving user interfaces, but until they can achieve similar breakthroughs in how the machines work with other devices, Windows netbooks are still a better deal.
Edited by Walt and written by Katie Boehret, this is a guide to gadgets, web services and other consumer technologies.
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