While I am skeptical that every technology progresses in lockstep and indefinitely: storage capacity; storage speeds; network speeds; consumer devices; I'm actually objecting more to "bigger is better." It seems that isn't necessarily true. Especially when it's a photo of your face.

Also, just a nitpick. I think relevant factor is ~100, the difference between the current resolution maintained by most websites and the proposed one for this technique to start becoming feasible.

[Ok, 20 may be right. I didn't know they allowed 2000x1000]

Facebook will store 2000x1???, and the technique proposed here requires 6000x6???. That's a factor of about 20, not 100.

Personally, I will enjoy seeing high res pictures of other people on my 4k monitor when I get one.

Again, not saying I'm 100% that you're wrong, but you're making a bold and unprecedented prediction.

Wasn't all that long ago that 320x200 images were considered astoundingly good and sufficient. The "zoom image" scene in Blade Runner was wishful thinking; now we're discussing its imminent reality.

It also wasn't long ago that we thought we would have flying cars and supersonic airliners. Physics is a cruel master.

I thought this was a discussion about Facebook serving higher resolution digital photos - why is physics relevant here?

I think the point is, if smartphone cameras eventually get to say 40MP then people will start uploading at that resolution even if there's absolutely no benefit from it. The image may then be scaled down to be shown on the page, but FB can keep the original.

it would be cool to make group pictures, though.

Isn't one of Nokia/Microsoft's phones, currently on market, at 42 megapixels?

It is; and the PureView 808 (Symbian) has had that before. But even though the full-resolution shot is saved for post-processing you usually get a 5- or 8MP shot that's your actual final image.