Windows Phone Thoughts: Microsoft Research Developing Image Browsing Technologies

"Pictures have become increasingly common and popular in mobile communications. However, due to the limitation of mobile devices, there is a need to develop new technologies to facilitate the browsing of large pictures on the small screen. In this paper, we propose a novel approach which is able to automate the scrolling and navigation of a large picture with a minimal amount of user interaction on mobile devices. An image attention model is employed to illustrate the information structure within an image. An optimal image browsing path is then calculated based on the image attention model to simulate the human browsing behaviors."

This link is to a highly technical research paper that, I'm glad to see, addresses the fact that we have small-screen devices but want to see large-sized content with them, such as pictures. While increasing resolution is a partial solution, there's only so much the eye can see in a 3.5" display. Some Microsoft researchers are working on the next best thing -- technologies to display the relevant content of an image automatically, including scrolling. While this is far from production, this kind of research may pave the way for future generations of user interfaces in smartphones and handhelds in general.