One of the things I think holds the most promise for Microsoft technologies like Deep Zoom, Photosynth, and multitouch, is the deep exploration of art and artifacts. It's one thing to read about a place or device, but it's another to be able to explore
every facet of an object on your own.
Brown University has
teamed together with Microsoft Research and created an application for
Microsoft Surface that will be used as the centerpiece in
an exhibition on the future of digital scholarship. In this exhibit, a five-foot tall, football-field-length
print can be explored, magnified, annotated, and overlaid with other images and videos. This is an unprecedented way of exploring artifacts and a big step forward for digital curation.