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Watching this demo makes it very stark how much our single page webapps are regressions in fluid performance.

Is this not a Silverlight app or something?

I highly doubt that demo was JS / could run in multiple browsers without some proprietary runtime.

It was, in point of fact, a Java applet. [0] Older, less secure, but more powerful.

[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20191231213153/http://phototour....

After watching that video: Why did no one build the application that tied your personal photos with a global database of all the other public photos taken in the same place? Seems like it would have been an amazing application.

yes ... impressive TED talk back then and even now