A lot of the things we saw in the movie are becoming reality; we’ve got electric cars on the roads (though not in huge numbers), we are already able to browse content or play video games with our hands and feet, and electronic paper is being perfected at this very moment.

One of the things that always intrigued me – amongst others – was how the videos were controlled in the movie. Instead of pressing play and pause, the videos were directly manipulated – rewound, played and sped up – with simple, intuitive gestures.

Again, the quick progress of technology has caught up, allowing us to tick off this feature on our Minority Report list as well

DimP- A Direct Manipulation Video Player

DimP is an application that makes this very thing possible. It’s a direct manipulation video player, but what exactly does that mean?

Well, instead of watching an elevator go up, or a car drive down a road, we can grab the objects in question, and drag them along their path. To put it very simply, we use the objects of the film as timeline sliders.

DimP does this by calculating the motion paths of every element in the video, and by matching them up with the timeline. You can then grab any object, and drag it along its motion path.

The video itself won’t be altered, as DimP stores the motion paths of each individual video in a MOTION file. Holding on to these files will speed up later usage, but if discarded, you can easily have them recreated in a timely fashion.

There are various uses for this kind of software. Besides the fact that it’s extremely fun to drag your way across videos, research has also proven that “completion time for in-scene navigation tasks” are reduced by an average of 19 to 42 percent.

DimP will also come in handy if you need to watch a video in great detail. Security footage, for instance, or lab recordings, can be viewed in the needed pace. Have a closer look at the details of every move.

Technical Information

Sadly, DimP is only available for Windows systems – it runs smoothly on Windows XP and Vista, but is known to have some issues with the Windows 7 Beta.

Macintosh users (running OS X 10.5 Leopard or later) should check out DRAGON, a very similar, Mac-exclusive program. DimP is currently limited to AVI-, DRAGON to MOV files.

Do you see a future in this technology? What do you like or dislike about it? Perhaps you know another, even better application that does the job. Tell us all about it in the comments!

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The site has been running for about a year, and went public a few months back. Since then they’ve been adding capability to the product. It’s looking good. They even have a scanning service to convert all those old prints into a digital stream.

I like the layout of the site. I’m not so sure about some of the things that happen on the page. For instance, in Firefox 3, Ctrl-Tab doesn’t work any more, and neither does the scroll wheel on my mouse, at least in the main part of the page.  I’m running on Vista if that make any difference to you.

Membership of the site is free, but requires the usual collection of personal information to get in. After you’ve got through that, click the blue Create button and then New Capzle to get started.

You can add an impressive stack of stuff to your Capzle. But it’s easier to do than to describe, so let’s get started.

First, the content. Click the button, and choose the directly option. You can try out the stacked and blogging settings later. The idea here is that you are creating a timeline, and putting items in place on the line.

Capzle wants you to have the files with you, so if they are on Flickr, for instance, you’ll need to download them first. Browse to the files, select them all, and upload them to the site.

The most common use of Capzles is to capture a sequence of events, so you’re going to be forced to put up with my trip to Melbourne for Christmas. No one ever said it was easy.

Now you’re in edit mode with an untitled Capzle in place. Let’s set a few things. Top left in the menus is the Add Title & Description option. Go ahead and click that.

Set the title and description as you please. You can choose from what must be the wackiest font list I’ve seen in a while, and colour it as you please. You can see that the title in the main area changes as you tinker. Eventually… hey, pay attention… eventually you’ll get sick of fiddling with that.

We’ll go through and set some more things, but first we should have a look at how the result is going. Click the I’m Finished button, top right, and you can preview the result. You can click Edit Capzle to return to this design view any time. Go on, you deserve it. This is the view other folk will see of your work, but with more controls in place.

In preview mode you have a control panel in the centre of the page, and you can also use your mouse to move around. Try holding the mouse over an image, and clicking on it.

The control panel consists of six buttons. The magnifying glass controls the size of the images, as you might expect. The four centre buttons are used by holding the mouse button down over them, causing the stream of images to scroll to the left or right. The final button is for the soundtrack volume. More on that later.

Back to design mode now… We need to change some more settings.

Just quickly… the Tags and Categories section in the menu will let you set some metadata for your show, and make it easier for other folk to find your work.

We’re now heading for the Design Your Capzle option.

That’s where we make some sweeping changes to the look of the production. You can choose from a substantial list of themes in the list. As a photographer I don’t want anything too overpowering back there, but if you’re the day-glow-pink-bling type you can find something in here too, I think.

You can also click the design it myself tab at the top and make more controlled changes if you like, including the choice of a single colour background or some sort of gradient. You can also upload a background image if you are possessed so inclined. Fiddle with this until you are happy with the result.

The playlist option lets you choose a background track for your visitors to enjoy while they look at your shots.

Click the upload button, choose one or more tracks, and upload them.

It’s worth noting that the dialogue that displays states I certify that I have the right to upload this content and that it does not violate the terms of use of the Capzles website. I’m pretty sure that, at least where I live, that statement precludes the uploading of the latest hit by your favourite artist, but obviously your mileage may vary.

Two to go…

Set the privacy level of the Capzle in the next section. Be a grown-up, and consider whether anyone will be offended by what you’re doing. Good.

Now the best part. Share the Capzle. There are essentially two ways to do this.

First off you can click the Send to Friends button, and get Capzles to do the heavy lifting for you. I’m not fond of that option, purely because my paranoia kicks in. I don’t want to send the Capzles folk a list of my friends’ email addresses. it’s not them. It’s me.

The other option is to grab the URL for your Capzle, and send it to them yourself. I’d do that.

So in the end, we’ve fairly easily constructed a complex timeline. You might have noticed though that what we finished with isn’t a slideshow in the traditional sense. Navigation is the responsibility of the user. That’s great for your friends at school or work, but it’s not going to work for Granny. She’s just not a Web 2.0 girl, and you know it. So think about what works best for you audience.

Visitors have all the main controls at their hands, but they can’t edit any of the info. That’s just as well, because they missed out on the trip, right? So they’ll be jealous.

The Capzles folk tell me that both an automated play option and a Flickr import are in the wind. I look forward to both options.

I’m curious. Do you prefer this approach to a standard slideshow? Who would your audience consist of? What other options have you tried?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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Some of these images date back as far as 1750 and others are as recent as the 2000’s. You may browse through photos grouped by people (FDR), places (Taj Mahal), events (the Kentucky Derby), sports, or any cultural keyword you can think of.

For example, here’s a word that’s been thrown around lately: “depression.” Type that in to find photos from the Great Depression of the 1930’s.  You can start from http://images.google.com/hosted/life or simply add “source:life” to the search box on any Google Image Search page. Framed copies of any photo you find are available for purchase.

Other Image Collections

It should be noted that Life’s sister publication, Time, also has an extensive (but not yet Googleized) photo archive dating back to 1999. It can be found on the Time homepage, but here’s a direct link. You may also use the site’s search function, where photo essays will show up on the right sidebar.

National Geographic magazine offers thousands of beautiful stock photos at NationalGeographicStock which can be searched by keyword. You may also specify whether you want royalty-free images and/or images which may have their rights managed.

NASA’s Johnson Space Center has a collection of over 9000 press-release photos of America’s manned space program. More can be found here. Both can be searched by keyword.

America’s National Archive has but a fraction of its materials in its Archive Research Catalog. However that still amounts to over 140,000 digitized photographs and documents which can be searched by keyword, or leisurely browsed.

Rounding out our list, Image Services at the University of Pennsylvania Library has archives in several categories: Fine Arts, Chemistry, South Asian, or Shakespearean. Certain large images are only permitted for use on UPenn’s domain, however all images can be viewed from outside UPenn.

There’s some beautiful stuff and potential desktop wallpaper to be found in these collections. You may find some more wallpaper fodder via this February article by Tina.

Do you know of any other media treasure-troves?  Do you have any favorites?  How else can we use archives such as these? Let us know in the comments.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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The problem with this is that many people think these websites are useless because the website is either hard to use, a waste of time, or too different. But there are a lot of sites out there that people should take another look at, even if they do seem to be useless at first. Sites that are in beta will improve overtime, and a “useless” product can turn into the “next big thing”.

Here are a few sites that might be useless at the moment but should be bookmarked for use later on.

1. ʇxǝʇ ɹnoʎ dılɟ (Flip your Text)

What it is: ˙ǝʇɐpdn ǝɹnʇnɟ ɐ uı ǝlqɐlıɐʌɐ ǝq llıʍ ǝɹnʇɐǝɟ ʇɐɥʇ ǝqʎɐɯ ˙ʇǝʎ pǝɹǝpuǝɹ ǝq ʇ’uɐɔ lɐʇıdɐɔ ʇɐɥʇ sı ɯǝlqoɹd ɹǝɥʇouɐ ˙ʇı pɐǝɹ oʇ ǝlqɐ ǝq llıʇs llıʍ ǝldoǝd ʇnq ‘ǝɔɐld ɟo ʇno puɐ pɹıǝʍ ʇıq ɐ ɯǝǝs ʇɥƃıɯ sɹǝʇʇǝl ǝɥʇ ɟo ǝɯos ˙ǝɹǝɥʍǝɯos ʇı ʇsod puɐ ʇxǝʇ uʍop ǝpısdn ǝɥʇ ʎdoɔ ʇsnɾ ʍou ˙punoɹɐ pǝddılɟ ǝq plnoʍ xoq ‘ʇxǝʇ lɐuıƃıɹo’ ǝɥʇ uı pǝdʎʇ noʎ ʇxǝʇ ǝɥʇ ‘ʎlʇuɐʇsuı ˙uoʇʇnq ‘dılɟ’ ǝɥʇ ʞɔılɔ puɐ xoq ‘ʇxǝʇ lɐuıƃıɹo’ ǝɥʇ oʇuı dılɟ oʇ ʇuɐʍ noʎ ɹǝʌǝʇɐɥʍ ǝdʎʇ ʇsnɾ ˙ʇı pɐǝɹ oʇ ɹǝpɹo uı uʍop ǝpısdn sǝʌlǝsɯǝɥʇ uɹnʇ oʇ pǝǝu ǝldoǝd ʇɐɥʇ ʎɐʍ ɐ uı ʇxǝʇ sdılɟ ʇı ˙sǝıldɯı ǝɯɐu ǝɥʇ ʇɐɥʍ sǝop ʇxǝʇ ɹnoʎ dılɟ

Flip your Text does what the name implies. It flips text in a way that people need to turn themselves upside down in order to read it. Just type whatever you want to flip into the ‘Original Text’ box and click the ‘Flip’ button. Instantly, the text you typed in the ‘Original Text’ box would be flipped around. Now just copy the upside down text and post it somewhere. Some of the letters might seem a bit weird and out of place, but people will still be able to read it. Another problem is that capital letters can’t be rendered yet. Maybe that feature will be available in a future update.

Why it seems useless: While it’s extremely cool, there isn’t really a use for for this tool. It’s not like you’d use this when you’re applying for a job or when you want to break up with someone over Facebook. If you were to write an entire blog post with the letters all flipped around, your blog readers are going to scamper away like they’ve seen their boss in pink undergarments.

Why you should bookmark it: Flip your Text is one of the best ways of getting attention. Since it uses a combination of ASCII and UT8 characters, it can be rendered by most websites, which means you can use this just about anywhere, including Twitter and your e-mail. If a title of your blog post is flipped around, it’s going to attract a lot of attention because everyone’s going to be thinking “How did they do that?”. Just make sure you don’t use it too much because it can get annoying…

2. AudioTool

What it is: Hobnox’s Audiotool is a flash based web application where you can create your own music, using the same tools many of the DJ’s in real life use. It’s a place to experiment, fool around, and maybe even learn something. When you start the application, you’ll be brought to a flash page where you’ll see a mixer, three synthesizers, and two rows of pedals that you can play around with. Everything you see can be manipulated. Fool around with knobs, connect tools together, and just have some fun with it. It’s still in beta so things are not perfect yet and you’re not able to save your work, but AudioTool is definitely something fun to play with.

Why it seems useless: Sometimes websites are considered to be useless because it’s just too hard to use. This is one of them. Unlike other hard-to-use tools like Photoshop, the quality of the end product all depends on your skill level. Hardcore Photoshop users are going to argue this matter, but you have to admit that even Photoshop newbies can use basic tools to touch up their pictures. I tried playing around with Audiotool, and made the mistake of turning my speakers up while testing things out. About five minutes later, I got a call from a neighbor telling me to “stop banging the table”. Guess I should have watched the tutorials first…

Why you should bookmark it: This site is still being developed so it might be a while before it becomes a site hardcore users are going to use. At the moment, this is just something for people to begin learning how to use audio equipment and also a place to fool around. Later on, the tool will really help people who don’t have the money to buy the equipment, and once Version 2.0 comes out and users can save their work, this tool is going to be embraced by everyone interested in creating music. If you’re going to create something in AudioTool, just be sure to watch the tutorials.

3. Dipity

What it is: Dipity is the King of timelines. It’s a great web tool that you can set up to keep track of all your feeds (including RSS, Twitter, Flickr, blogs, Last.fm, and more) and Dipity will make a visual timeline of what you do with your life. The timeline doesn’t have to be personal either; you can create one about a topic (like internet memes) and invite others to add to the timeline.

The only bad thing is that the amount of information available depends on how much information is in the RSS feed. If the RSS feed only shows a few articles, your timeline isn’t going to be that long. If you don’t like the way the timeline is organized, you can click on the other tabs and display all the information in a list, a flipbook, or in a map.

Why it seems useless: While most people would agree that this is a great idea, they don’t really see how it can be used. Yes, you can load it up with all your RSS feeds, but what good is it if you’ve already seen all the articles already? Looking at old articles or old Twitter posts isn’t going to do you any good. You’d just be wasting your time looking at things you have already seen before.

Why you should bookmark it: Dipity is one of those websites that are as useful as you want them to be. If you decide to put up feeds you read daily, then the timeline that you make isn’t going to be useful to you. However, if you decide to put up feeds of specific websites, you can make the timeline do whatever you want it to do. Here are some suggestions on using Dipity.

- Add in RSS feeds of websites you really like but don’t have the time to look at everyday. Then you can visit Dipity each week and catch up on what you missed.

- Create a timeline of current events (such as the presidential election or the war in Iraq) or just find one already made and add your own links to it. If the links are good, then you can stay up to date with all the info.

- Be a creep and use this as a tool for stalking others. Just type in the username someone uses and you’re all set.

Another cool thing about Dipity is that you can embed a timeline into your blog or website. Here’s one of Make Use Of…

The folks at Dipity have also created a site called TimeTube, a site where you can search for YouTube videos and the results are displayed on a Dipity timeline based on time and popularity. You can read the previous Make Use Of review of TimeTube here.

4. Midomi

What it is: Midomi is an extremely innovative music search engine. Instead of searching for music using keywords and names, you can find songs using your own voice. Remember that beat you just can’t get out of your head but don’t remember the name of the song? No problem, Midomi will find it for you. To start a search, just click on the search button and allow Midomi access to your microphone. Then you can then hum, sing, whistle, or burp a song and Midomi will try to find it for you. Once you’ve found the song, you can listen to how others sing it, buy it from iTunes, or watch videos of it.

Like AudioTool, this site is in beta and needs some improvement but it works pretty well. I tested it out by “singing” (or what least trying to sing) three songs. It found two of the songs, but missed the last one. Midomi will only work if there have been previous members who have sung the entire song. The more users there are, the better the search results because Midomi matches your tune to the tunes in its database.

Why it seems useless: It takes a while to set things up, and searching for something only takes a few moments. It’s not exactly the most accurate tool on the block either. If you accidentally sing the song wrong, you’re going to get bad results. Besides, it’s not often that you can’t remember any words at all. As long as you remember a few sentences in a song, you can just put it into quotes and search it up on a regular search engine. Going through the hassle of setting up your microphone for Midomi seems like a waste of time.

Why you should bookmark it: Midomi is one of the most innovative sites I’ve ever seen. I can imagine other websites following in Midomi’s steps and use voice as a means of search. Even though people might not be using it as a search engine, you can still enjoy the site. You can sing your favorite songs, and each song you sing will improve the searching experience of others. If others like the way you sing, you could become a Midomi star getting your own place on the website. Test it out, you’d be surprised on how accurate it is.

5. Other Goodies

Having already written about four awesome sites that you’re probably going to use a lot, I think it’s time to mention a few useless sites you might never use, but you’re going to want to take a look at. The first one was brought to my attention by Aibek. He showed me this great site called Hencam where you watch chickens. That’s right. It’s an entire website dedicated to watching chickens in real time, don’t what they normally do. Useless? Yep. Cool as heck? Totally.

Another site that I pretty ashamed of of admitting I’ve used before is called Cheddar Vision. It has the same concept as Hencam, but instead of watching chickens, you watch a 500 pound chunk of cheese mold. Exciting, isn’t it? If you notice, the people at Cheddar Vision have Facebook, Myspace, and YouTube groups. If you’re interested in moldy cheese, be sure to add them on whatever network you’re on. If you go onto the website, you’ll also notice a little counter that tells you how long the cheese has been molding. There is another counter at the bottom that shows how many people have visited the site. (I sure am glad that there are over 1 million others out there who watch cheese just like me.)

There you are. These sites might still seem a bit useless to you, but I still hope you’ll take the time to check them out. Who knows? Maybe you’ll find them to be the coolest sites you’ve seen. Try them out and tell me what you think. Do you know another site that others think is useless but you use anyway? Tell me about it in the comments.

(By) Ken Burkes is an active web surfer who diggs, stumbles, and blogs in his free time. Being too lazy to get a blog of his own, you should stay up to date with Make Use Of to find more of his articles.

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