I may not be a Microsoft fan however I do realise that they (or their money) can go into producing something that is truely new and unique.  Search for Notre Dame on flickr and you will find thousands (190 thousand in fact) of pictures of the cathedral.  Photosynth has really taken that to the next level and allowed a true 3D map to be built from these 2D pictures.

For me, this is straight out of Star Trek.  Saying that, Ironically this is almost impossible without the sort of basic tagging that is only now starting to be done with photos.  I am looking forward to seeing where this technology takes us.

See the TED Talks video on Photosynth for a much better example and demo.