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Microsoft offers free image-browsing app for iPhone

Seadragon Mobile is Microsoft's first iPhone app

By Eric Lai

December 15, 2008 12:00 PM ET

Computerworld - Microsoft Corp. said Saturday that it has created a free application that lets users browse superlarge images on the iPhone's 3.5-in. touch screen.

The application is called Seadragon Mobile and is developed by the Live Labs team at Microsoft.

Available for free via the iTunes App Store, Seadragon lets users view gigapixel-sized images using the iPhone's multi-touch screen to zoom in and out of photos or maps "with just a few pinches or taps of your finger," according to the Live Labs blog.

Live Labs is Microsoft's in-house Internet incubator, a cross-functional group made up of "scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs" tasked with developing Web 2.0 applications and features, according to its Web description.

Live Labs has publicly released a number of applications and projects in the past year.

Despite the fierce rivalry between Microsoft, whose Windows Mobile operating system is used in smart phones competing with Apple Inc.'s iPhone, Microsoft's development of an application for the iPhone is not entirely a surprise.

During the iPhone's release this summer, Microsoft had hinted that it would release an app for the iPhone.

Live Labs group product manager Alex Daley told TechFlash.com that Microsoft chose the iPhone for the first mobile release of Seadragon before Windows Mobile or BlackBerry smart phones because of the Apple phone's popularity and strong graphics capabilities.

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Microsoft is expected to release a voice-recognition application for the iPhone next year, according to TechFlash.

Besides zooming in and out of single images, Seadragon is meant to enable users to browse and zoom in and out of a set of images stitched together via Microsoft's Photosynth technology.

However, Microsoft said the Photosynth feature broke after Seadragon was uploaded to the App Store.

Microsoft said it has developed a fix.

Read more about Mobile and Wireless in Computerworld's Mobile and Wireless Topic Center.

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