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Photo and video enhancer Cooliris has launched an updated version of its browser add-on that brings new features including support for viewing local media, file specific metadata, and a Facebook photo viewer that shows user name tags. It's also available--for the first time, to Linux users.


This basically turns your browser into an ad-hoc media center, something Shoemaker says has been created to be a unified experience across multiple platforms. For instance, if you're on a Mac, it links up with iPhoto, and if you're on a PC, it organizes your "my pictures" folder by album. Either way, you see your stuff without telling the service where to go to find it.

But what about Web content you ask? It's also been given a boost--literally. The new version has a visual effects engine that take better advantage of users' graphics hardware. For Mac users the tool is using OpenGL, and on Windows it's Direct 3D. Seth says it runs lean enough that most hardware from the last five years or so should have no problems with it. In my brief testing I ran it on a 3- year-old PC with barely a hiccup, however it's noticeably smoother on my other machine with a beefier graphics card.

Cooliris currently supports Firefox (Windows XP/Vista, Mac, and Linux), Internet Explorer, and Safari (Mac). On Linux, Cooliris has been tested on Ubuntu 8.04, Fedora 10, and OpenSuse 11, using 32-bit and 64-bit Adobe Flash®.

Cooliris supports the following websites:


Image Search
AOL Images Ask Images Google Images Live Images Yahoo Images

Photo Sharing
deviantART Flickr Fotki fotocommunity Photobucket Picasa Web Albums Smugmug
Professional Stock Photos
Getty Images iStockphoto

Video
Hulu (USA only, inline) YouTube

Social Networks
Bebo Facebook Friendster Hi5 MySpace

Other Sites
drop.io Ffffound Freewebs Pollstar OBG Rocks LA Times (Tribute) TTG Galleries (Lightroom) Arkyves Fidel Free Image Browser Gift Impact iPernity
Jaman Kodak Gallery MeOwns My Album Phoca Gallery (Joomla) Portsmouth Football Club Prem1on Shutterpoint Talent-Aid Tim Fahlbusch Tripwolf Xbox Live Faces