Microsoft has always been the inspiration of technology freaks all over the globe. And CSI’s interpretation of various Microsoft technologies into its creative space is no different. Microsoft for quite sometime, that has been collaborating with CSI and vice versa to promote its own business ventures. Just as CSI has acknowledged Microsoft as its technology partner, Microsoft has the pleasure of being in the limelight and reach millions of people through CSI scripts.
The latest buzz is of course the episode of the CBS fiction crime drama CSI: NY, which for the first time unveils Microsoft Photosynth software to the world. In a highly action packed drama where the forensic scientists for the New York police are seen trying to solve a murder mystery by recreating the crime scene. And the technology used here is MS Photosynth where hundreds of camera phone thumbnail photos snapped at the crime scene is uploaded onto a computer.
It was actually CSI creator Anthony E. Zuiker’s unintentional brush with the technology, at the Microsoft’s research labs in Redmond, Wash, which provoked him to develop the storyline with Microsoft Photosynth as the backdrop to solving the mystery. The technology behind Photosynth is that it analyzes scores of images for similarities and stitches them into a three-dimensional reconstruction. And the highlight of the technology as exhibited in the script is that, investigators can maneuver the images from every angle to show close-ups of the scene.
Microsoft Photosynth is expected to be launched by the end of 2008. However, Microsoft has strategically managed to grab the limelight and present the software to its audience much before its scheduled release through the entertainment medium of CSI. This has unarguably managed to attract more eyeballs than a 30-second ad campaign on television.

This new role of ‘Tech Advisor’ on the part of Microsoft for CSI had also earlier witnessed many successes. CSI has successfully implemented Microsoft’s Surface technology earlier in the script CSI: Miami; where the audiovisual lab was reconstructed to incorporate layout tables based on Microsoft’s Surface tabletop computers.
And this unique collaboration is sure to create history in terms of mutual respect and business advantage. And the most intrinsic part of this association is that, no money has been exchanged in the Microsoft-CSI relationship. This of course goes beyond the traditional product assignment and Microsoft is hopeful that this sizzling chemistry and unique collaboration will be first of many impending alliances of the future.