Now read on...
Cooliris is a browser-based three-dimensional graphical user interface (GUI) featuring a full-screen interactive '3D Wall' that uses an Apple Cover Flow-style approach to viewing visual media assets such as images from the web, and to enable users to interact with PowerPoint-style presentations. The real-world kinetic motion of Cooliris simplifies the process of searching for and navigating through slide decks and image libraries. Table 1 shows the range of features that the application supports:
Table 1 Cooliris features
| Feature | Location | Function |
| 3D Wall | The rows of images on the black background | Allows an immersive view of thousands of images and videos in seconds. |
| Discover | The icon is on the top left | Press the Discover icon and 11 channels that feature the latest news feeds from across the web. These channels range from news to fashion. We're currently featuring an Olympics channel that has all the visual highlights from Beijing. |
| Sharing Login | Top left "Login" icon | Click and a drop down box will appear asking for username and password. New? Register! |
| Share | Top right envelope and pencil in the metadata box | Click to send an email to a friend that encloses any images or videos you've found interesting in the PicLens interface. To add more than one image or video, drag the images and videos you want next to the image or video you already have in the message. |
| Slideshow Full Screen Mode | Bottom left box with four arrows in the corners | Takes viewer into full screen slideshow mode. This mode is also accessible by double clicking any image. Double click image to escape or press the Cooliris grid icon in bottom left. |
| Shopping | Search bar in the top right | Click the search bar and select Amazon from the drop down box to start the next generation online shopping experience. |
| Cooliris Developer | Not within the PicLens interface, but by following the instructions detailed on the site, webmasters can easily enable their own websites with PicLens. All their visitors with PicLens can then view images and videos from the website within PicLens. | |
| YouTube | Search bar in the top right | Click the search bar and select YouTube from the drop down box. Viewers can search and view YouTube videos within PicLens. |
Once you have installed the Cooliris plug-in images are displayed on a virtual "wall" as you can see from Figure 1. If you are practised in the art of "skimming" text in articles or blogs, you will be familiar with the technique used to search for image resources in this type of environment; my initial impression after using the tool is that very quickly you can scan a range of images and let the one you're looking for "emerge" from the wall.
Figure 1 Cooliris UIOnce you click on an image you're interested in, it centers on the screen and scales up so that you can view it in more detail. From a learning professional's perspective, this has certain advantages. if like me, you have amassed a large library of resources that you regularly use when developing courseware this enables you to search quickly through a range of visual media assets to find appropriate images, charts, diagrams and video to insert into presentations and / or e-learning content.
At this point though, the fact that this is an early version of an application becomes apparent: there is no easy way to save an image to a location as it does not support contextual menus (i.e. via right-clicking on a PC mouse or CTRL-clicking on the Mac) and therefore no "Save image as.." function. You can e-mail the image to yourself, but if you're used to undertaking this activity in two or three gestures, in my view this will impede your workflow. I'm sure this limitation will be addressed in future releases but for the moment it reduces the effectiveness of the tool as a pre-production application.
Figure 2 Cooliris Plug-in for PowerPoint
In summary, I like Cooliris and in assessment would award it a 'C+' - more potential to be realized.
I think that it's a utility that has a future as a presentation tool, makes very good use of technology and seems to coexist very comfortably in the dynamic presentation domain. As a learning tool, it would certainly inspire learners to maintain interest in content being displayed using the technology.
So far, so good.
On the negative side, there are a number of functionality deficiencies to be resolved (I have already mentioned the lack of an easy 'Save as'...' feature) such as PowerPoint animations are lost in the Cooliris conversion process, which would require partial re-authoring of content to enable the same progress through a presentation. Other points to be mentioned include that while it supports Firefox (Windows XP/Vista and Mac), Internet Explorer, and Safari 3.0 (Mac), it doesn't support Opera or Safari 3.1. Similarly there is currently no Linux version of the plug-in, though the developers say that this is on the way.
Finally, I've found that it's a bit of a trial to enable Cooliris on a website. If you want your site to be interpreted via Cooliris, there's a process to be undertaken to activate the functionality:
- Enter in the name of a website that has images. The website should have a gallery of pictures that all have consistent name paths (ex. thumbs/image.jpg-->fulls/image.jpg, image1_thumb.jpg-->image2_full.jpg, etc.)
- Next, select the thumbnail of a picture you want to show up in Cooliris. After you click it, select the full size image of the thumbnail.
- Select a different thumbnail, and then the corresponding full size image, just as you did in the last step. We use the couple examples you give us to infer the other images you'll want in Cooliris.
- You should see a green rectangle with a "test site" button. Click it. If you don't see the green rectangle, try adding examples until it pops up.
- Click the test page to see a preview of your page. If you don't see all the pictures you wanted on the wall, give us more examples and we'll try to get it right.
- After you've tested your site, click the download button. This will start a download of cooliris-quick.xml. We use this file to understand your site.
Figure 3 Activating Cooliris on a website- Upload the file to any directory on your site. Click here for more information on uploading.
- After you've up uploaded, give us the absolute address of cooliris-quick.xml on your webspace.
- Then (!) copy and paste the link into the head tag of each web page you've Cooliris enabled.
In conclusion, my view is that this tool is exciting, exhibits great potential, but needs a little work to get it past the finish line. Having said that, I can easily see it being a common part of the web experience in time to come, particularly if the developers can sustain the "fun factor" supplied by navigating through content in this environment.
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Links:
Cooliris (formerly PicLens) website: http://www.cooliris.com/
Cooliris Overview Demo: http://www.cooliris.com/demo/
Sample Cooliris PowerPoint Presentation (Duration: About 1 minute 43 seconds): http://michaelhanley.ie/demos/cisample/ci_sample.html
Hi-res Cooliris Features Demo (Duration: About 1 minute 43 seconds):
http://michaelhanley.ie/demos/cooliris_demo/cooliris.html
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