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Microsoft launches WorldWide Telescope into private alpha

Feb 28, 2008 8:10 am by Chris | 6 comments

It made Scoble cry, and soon it can make you cry too. The website for the latest Microsoft Research project, WorldWide Telescope, is now up at http://wwtelescope.com/. Here’s how Robert describes it:

“So, back to the World Wide Telescope. You drag around the sky. There’s Mars. There’s the big dipper. There’s Betelguese. Etc. It’s just like the star party you probably attended in college.
But it has one difference between any telescope you’ve ever looked at.
You can zoom. Zoom. Zoom. Zoom.
We picked a point of light inside the big dipper. Zoom. Zoom. Zoom. Zoom. Holy shit, it’s two galaxies colliding. It looked like a star. Zoom. Zoom. Zoom.”

No sign of the download yet, with Scoble saying its in private alpha right now. If you’re interested in finding out more, Sunshine posted a bunch of info on it last week. We’ll let you know when its open to all.

Update: Thanks to Scoble’s Twitter, here’s the embed of the TED talk featuring WorldWide Telescope:

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/224

Update2: Thanks to the pointer in the comments, there’s also a small screenshot now up on the WorldWide Telescope website.

This entry was posted in News and tagged Microsoft Research, PhotoSynth, WorldWide Telescope. Bookmark the permalink.

pikablu0530
Want a sneak preview? Go to http://cas.sdss.org/dr6/en/tools/chart/navi.asp
It’s a website called “SDSS SkyServer DR6″ which is powered by Microsoft Research also.
pikablu0530
Oh yeah, and btw, the official website also features a tiny screenshot of the WWT program. The UI reminds me of Windows Media Player….at least the top menu bar does =)
http://wwtelescope.com/buzz/t5.jpg
quikboy
I wish they would at least post a real screenshot of it. Or at least had it ready for the public to look through when they announced it.
It’s kind of annoying to be kept on your toes with as little visuals as possible.
And a bunch of videos about people saying how it’s neat, isn’t as neat as seeing the thing for yourself.
BV2312
You would think they would use silverlight instead of flash…..
mdsharpe
It looks like Celestia
tophtucker
BV2312–indeed…
Freezing the high-res version of the TED talk offers a slightly better look at the interface:
http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/8499/worldwidetelescopeea3.png
Looks like the top menu says Explore, Guided Tours, Search, Community, ???, View, Settings, Trip or Map or something.