The past year has seen an array of technological newness that has pointed firmly towards the future directions of interaction, interface and visual experience. Obviously complex bleeding-edge systems like Photosynth shown at TED or the multitouch table shown by Mirosoft jump to mind. But on the smaller, more intimate scale we've also seen the I-phone and I-pod touch with their now famous 'pinch' control.
Now we have PicLens which presents an extrodinary image viewing mechanism delivered as a simple browser plugin.
Working with a host of comon online image systems such as Flickr and Google Images the PicLens plugin allows for the online image selection or collection to be viewed as a 3D video wall. The wall, stretching on almost infinately, as far as the image collection continues, can be zoomed, scanned, tilted and navigated in a highly fluid interactive paradigm.
The great achievement of PicLens is to rise above the status of visual gimmick to present a very functional and fluidly effectivly viewing environent and experience. Seeking and locating a desired image is actually easier and in many ways more efficient on the PicLens image wall than simple scanning through thumbnail pages. Moreover, the developers of PicLens have implimented their image engine in a very system light manner that functions well even over slower bandwidths.
Along with the browser plugin PicLens is also availible as WordPress blo engine plugin allowing users to host their own PicLens image galleries.
