Previewing a PC file's Web site using the Social Desktop technology.

A new Microsoft Research prototype called Social Desktop blends the Web and the PC by automatically creating dedicated online pages for individual documents, photos and other files from a computer -- letting people selectively share snapshots of their hard drive's contents.

The idea is to integrate social-networking and online sharing more tightly into the PC experience, said Lili Cheng, who manages Microsoft Research's Creative Systems Group. For example, after a file is shared online, the PC user can use the Windows file-preview function to see, inside the operating system, comments made about that file on its dedicated Web page.

The early stage prototype is one of more than 100 projects scheduled to be shown next week at Microsoft Research's annual TechFest. The internal event helps Microsoft's researchers connect with others across the company, demonstrating their latest projects to Microsoft's product teams. It's one of the ways the company's research influences the direction of its products.

The Social Desktop application currently runs on the Windows 7 Beta, taking advantage of the new operating system's file-preview functions. It creates a Web address for individual items on the hard drive and then automatically stores read-only previews of those flines online using Microsoft's Windows Azure cloud-computing system.

The PC user can then share the file's Web address with anyone. The pages can be viewed using Microsoft's Silverlight technology in a Web browser. On the Web page, people can make comments and post tags, among other things.

"One of the things we've been looking at is how the Web way of communicating and sharing information can merge into the desktop," Cheng explained. "We've just been experimenting with a bunch of different ideas."

Social Desktop is expected to incorporate security and privacy precautions. For example, a PC user could go online to see everything shared from his computer, although others would only be granted permisison to access to specific items.

The project is still an early stage proof-of-concept. It's not clear when, or even whether, it might be released publicly. The researchers have a working prototype and plan to ultimately test it among a limited circle of people to get a sense for how people could use it. Microsoft Researc's Tom Laird McConnell is leading the project, working with Cheng and engineer Cezary Marcjan.

Cheng contrasted Social Desktop with Microsoft's existing Live Mesh service. "In the Mesh model, you can almost imagine your PC being pushed to the cloud," she explained. "In this, you can almost imagine the Web being embedded inside your desktop."