Google maps and photos

 Posted by (Visited 7417 times)  Game talk
May 302007
 

Google Maps has taken another step towards making the whole world an MMO.

If you’re like me, you said “Holy shit” the instant he starts walking around. 🙂

Of course, photos alone isn’t all that interactive. But I imagine that with the SketchUp buildings and other data getting piled into Google Earth, it’s just a matter of time…

  8 Responses to “Google maps and photos”

  1. Jerry Paffendorf says:
    May 30, 2007 at 11:44 am

    It continues to begin.

  2. csven says:
    May 30, 2007 at 12:22 pm

    “It continues to begin.”

    That does a good job expressing how I felt yesterday after seeing this and MS’s stuff.

  3. Prokofy Neva says:
    May 30, 2007 at 6:25 pm

    I’m not getting this. The sat photos are really out of date for my neighbourhood. The 360 zoom is — eh. I mean, I could go outside and see the same thing. Looking at other stuff here and there, I found it mildly interesting — like a kind of parlour game, like a stereopticon that you are entertained with for awhile — and then bored. Because it’s static. There are no people. Nothing is happening. You can’t manipulate it. You can only look at it. Then you’re done.

  4. Noah Falstein says:
    May 30, 2007 at 9:05 pm

    I have been using just the satellite views to help orient me when I travel. I was in Berlin for the first time, and was able to get around in part because of that, extreme top-down view and all. But with this feature, you could get a tour of a place you were thinking of travelling to, check out interesting looking restaurants or sights, see what freeway exits looked like, all sorts of stuff that’s handy. Works for business trips too. And if you are thinking of moving to a place that’s covered, you can show up with a sense of where everything is – or conversely decide not to look at houses in a certain neighborhood because you don’t like the look of it. Pretty cool stuff!

  5. Michael Chui says:
    May 31, 2007 at 12:37 am

    The 360 zoom is — eh. I mean, I could go outside and see the same thing.

    I’ve never been to New York. I’m going there in a couple weeks for the G4C “Festival”. I’ve been using it to check out where I’m going before I get there.

    But if you want real “Holy Shit”ness, check out this TED talk: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/129

    And Prok, could you stop expecting things to be pristine and perfect on first announcement?

  6. Tess says:
    May 31, 2007 at 10:56 am

    Oh, see, being female-brained, in spite of my excellent spatial abilities, I still navigate by landmark. (Studies have shown that this is indelibly hard-wired.) So, having a gadget I can use to see what my turns look like… that is some serious happy juice. It’d be wonderful to give street directions to friends, and be able to provide snapshots of all the turns, without having to run out with my camera and photograph all the locations, myself.

    Still, it’s, um, kind of weird. What if they photographed your street that month when you were slacking off on the lawnmowing? 😛

  7. chocorisu says:
    June 1, 2007 at 1:20 pm

    Photos of the Google Vans have shown laser rangefinders and a there is a working prototype of tech that can generate textured 3D geometry from a moving vehicle… expect to be able to fly around those streets sans-vehicles-and-people in a year or so.

    You can only look at it. Then you’re done.

    It’s a map, what do you expect? If you want to interact with it, GO OUTSIDE.

  8. chocorisu says:
    June 1, 2007 at 1:21 pm

    Photos of the Google Vans have shown laser rangefinders and a there is a working prototype of tech that can generate textured 3D geometry from a moving vehicle equipped with cameras and lasers… expect to be able to fly around those streets sans-vehicles-and-people in a year or so.

    You can only look at it. Then you’re done.

    It’s a map, what do you expect? If you want to interact with it, GO OUTSIDE.

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