Microsoft Research...

I can't comment on this aspect of Microsoft Research, but I can show you something else they've done that is absolutely fantastic....

You haven't seen a panorama making program until you've seen this one! It does its thing automatically after you dump a selection of overlapping images into it, and it can assemble a panorama not only from side-to-side but also from top to bottom, and some of those can be huge. Forget those programs that ask you to stitch things together by dragging one image over the next until you have fumbled and cussed your way to a half-assed panorama. Those days are totally gone, Baby! Get this one instead, and get a good look at the Big Picture.
Just click this link for your free download.

This is an example of what it can do. This was made from seven images of a scene I photographed this afternoon at the nearby mall. I simply sized them to the desired size, selected all, and dumped them into Image Composite Editor, and it did the rest automatically. These cranes are the ones you sometimes may notice in my sunset shots, where they will be partly obscured by trees.