It’s interesting to see pictures of areas of your city or town from the past, and it can be even more interesting to try to reproduce those pictures. Typically, it’s very difficult to get everything to line up exactly right, but researchers at MIT are developing software to automate the process.
The official name is “computational rephotography”, and it involves finding the exact same location that the original picture was taken. At the present time, the MIT software is only a concept, and requires a laptop to use. The software connects to a digital camera, and then allows the user to make sure that everything lines up properly. As Gadget Lab suggests, why not put the technology into the camera? Given that many cameras panorama software, or smile recognition already built in, it can’t be that difficult right? Personally, I just want a copy of the software. Sounds like fun to me.