Blaise Agüera y Arcas Recognized by Technology Review’s Prestigious TR35 Listing of the World’s Top Young Innovators for 2008

TR35 to be honored at Technology Review’s EmTech08 Conference at MIT in September.

REDMOND, Wash. — Microsoft Corp. today announced that Blaise Agüera y Arcas has been recognized by Technology Review magazine as one of the world’s top innovators under the age of 35 for his work developing Seadragon and co-creating Photosynth, a monumental piece of software capable of assembling static photos into a synergy of zoomable, navigable spaces. Selected from more than 300 nominees by a panel of expert judges and the editorial staff of Technology Review, the TR35 is an elite group of accomplished young innovators who exemplify the spirit of innovation.

Created by Agüera y Arcas, Seadragon aimed to change the way people use screens, from wall-sized displays to those on mobile devices, so that visual information can be smoothly browsed regardless of the amount of data involved or the bandwidth of the network. Agüera y Arcas joined Microsoft’s Live Labs in 2006, and in collaboration with Microsoft Research and the University of Washington, they combined Seadragon with a research project, Photo Tourism, to create Photosynth.

“The TR35 honors young innovators for accomplishments that are poised to have a dramatic impact on the world as we know it,” said Jason Pontin, editor in chief and publisher of Technology Review magazine. “We celebrate their success and look forward to their continued advancement of technology in their respective fields.”

Agüera y Arcas and the other TR35 winners for 2008 will be featured in the September issue of Technology Review and honored at the EmTech08 Conference to be held at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass., Sept. 23–25, 2008.

“Seadragon and Photosynth are changing the way people think about software, and they both suggest a future in which what we see on our computers actually exceeds our imaginations,” said Gary William Flake, Ph.D., technical fellow at Microsoft. “This vision is Blaise’s mission, and I fully expect that Blaise’s best contributions are to come.”

Additional information about past and present TR35 winners and judges is available at http://www.technologyreview.com/tr35. More information about the EmTech08 Conference can be found at http://www.technologyreview.com/emtech/08/index.aspx.