It seems like this should be pretty straightforward since Emacs knows how to display images.

In a buffer, let's say I have a URL to an image like:

http://centre.nikkeiplace.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/aikido11.jpg

I'd like to put the caret on that url, call a function like expand-image-from-url and have it render the image in-line.

Is this something that's easily possible?