I’m a sucker for photos of old street scenes. Seeing familiar parts of your city as they were many decades ago is fascinating, and if people are good enough to snap a new version, you can enjoy the differences of places you have never seen. At Flickr and a site called Historypin, you can see the old shots lined up over the new, like a window into the past.

Researchers at MIT have found a way to automate the process. Currently, they use a laptop to do the heavy lifting, but the software could just as easily sit inside a camera. In fact, that’s the plan. The system compares the scene in front of the camera with a historical photograph. It then works out the difference between the two and gives the photographer instructions along the lines of “up a bit, left a bit more.”

I would absolutely buy the camera that had this "gimmick". It sounds fantastic to me.

I've been hoping, one day, to collect together the bazillions of old Melbourne photos I have and complete a project like this, but not only have I not found the time, when I do attempt to take the "new" photo, lining it up is very difficult.

Bring it on.