Just kidding about that last part. Sorry if you've been waiting for that. Really.

Yesterday, Robert Scoble wrote about something Microsoft researchers Curtis Wong and Jonathan Fay were working on and will introduce early next month. It's so cool, Scoble says that it's very rare "that I see software that I know will change the world my sons live in." It made him cry. "While watching the demo I realized the way I look at the world was about to change. While listening to Wong I noticed a tear running down my face. It’s been a long while since Microsoft did something that had an emotional impact on me like that."

Yeah. How about never. (My favorite comment to Scoble's post: "Funny you should say that Robert, Microsoft products tend to make me cry……..with rage - generally about 3 or 4 times a day.")

But it sounds intriguing, no? I'm willing to give Microsoft a tiny bit of benefit of the doubt. But without any specifics from Scoble (he only got to see what Wong and Fay were doing by agreeing to a news embargo), his non-discussion discussion of the project did cause some problems for the team when a few popular tech blogs and hundreds of commenters started wildly speculating about just what made him cry.

Some of the speculation pointed at Photosynth. Scoble says nope. Today he says "[t]he thing I’m talking about is NOT anything you’ve seen Microsoft do before" and "I don’t believe this service will ship or be usable anytime soon. Remember that this is a Microsoft Research project and that they build things that aren’t meant to be production quality."

And then Long Zheng posted a screenshot of a Microsoft site, opensourcehero.com, that only displays the cryptic message, "{Forge} New Powers" and the date "February 27, 2008". At first Zheng thought it might be related to the Thing That Made Scoble Cry, but apparently not. At the least, there appears to be another hero in town come the end of the month. (Yes, I just linked to my own About page. I was here first.) Long Zheng is one of my favorite bloggers, by the way, because he's up front about this: "Inquire today about my competitive rates for biased opinions and reviews, discounts available for bulk purchases."

So we just don't know. I hope it really is cool, because I like cool stuff. I kinda hope it's a robot pony. But frankly, I'll just be satisfied never to accidently see these pictures ever again.

UPDATE: I visited Microsoft's Photosynth project again this morning (Saturday). I tried it last fall but it wasn't working right then. Today it worked very well and, admittedly, it's very cool. Of course it isn't what Made Scoble Cry, either, nor did I shed any tears. But it is cool. Take a look for yourself.