Microsoft Research starts selling photo software

 

Gallery

By Barry Collins

Posted on 5 Sep 2008 at 08:22

Microsoft has taken the unusual step of selling software created in its Research labs.

AutoCollage is a new application that automatically creates a collage of photos you've pre-selected from your albums.

The software attempts to automatically identify the "interesting" parts of photos, such as faces and landmarks, and then stitches them all together to create a printable momento of a holiday, for example.

Yet, while Microsoft Research often releases trial applications free of charge, the company has decided to charge £19.90 for AutoCollage from the Microsoft Store. Even on Research projects, the UK gets the rough end of the stick, with Microsoft charging US customers only $20 (around £11) for the same download.

The decision to charge for software taken straight out of Research labs is an indication of Microsoft's willingness to see a quick return on its massive investment in R&D. "While the majority of the work undertaken at Microsoft Research is longer-term, pure research, compelling innovations are also brought to market through a mix of technology transfer into Microsoft products, licensing our technology, and creating new ventures," says Mitch Goldberg, director of the Incubation, and Tech Transfer team at Microsoft.

There's a 30-day free trial of AutoCollage here, which embeds watermarks across any collages created.