2014年4月24日 星期四

Google introduces 'time machine' feature in Street View

Google introduces 'time machine' feature in Street View

Street-level mapping now lets users go back in time to see how cities, neighbourhoods and attractions have changed since 2007
google maps street view
This image shows what the Howard Theater in Washington looked like in July 2009, left, and after renovation in May 2012, right. (AP Photo/Google) Photograph: Uncredited/AP
Google has turned its Google Maps Street View into a time machine to let users travel back in time and see how places have changed.
The new feature will let users track changes in landscape, buildings, roads and entire neighbourhoods from around the world since the Street View mapping program began in 2007.
Users can now click on a new clock icon that will appear in the corner of the screen when using Street View on Google Maps on a desktop or laptop computer, firing up scrollbar-controlled time machine, changing the year and even season of the area or building they are currently looking at to see how it has changed over time.

'A time traveller like Doc Brown'

"If you've ever dreamt of being a time traveller like Doc Brown, now's your chance," said Google Street View product manager Vinay Shet in a blog post. "We've gathered historical imagery from past Street View collections dating back to 2007 to create this digital time capsule of the world."
Google
This image shows what a building in Singapore looked like in October 2008, upper left, against a more recent photo. (AP Photo/Google) Photograph: Uncredited/AP
Google's Street View uses car-mounted cameras to capture street-level photos of the world, stitching the images together into a virtual representation of the real world overlaid on Google's maps. Google's cars have driven across most of the world, but this is the first time the search giant has made more than one version of the resulting images available to the public.
"Now with Street View, you can see a landmark's growth from the ground up, like the Freedom Tower in New York city or the 2014 World Cup stadium in Fortaleza, Brazil," said Shet.

'A digital timeline of recent history'

"This new feature can also serve as a digital timeline of recent history, like the reconstruction after the devastating 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Onagawa, Japan. You can even experience different seasons and see what it would be like to cruise Italian roadways in both summer and winter," he said.
Street View has primarily been used as a way of visualising directions to help users find and identify locations they are looking for, but the service has become increasingly popular among "armchair explorers", who have used Street View to discover far away parts of the world without ever leaving home.
google street view
This image shows what a neighborhood in Japan looked like in July 2008, left, and in August 2011, after a major earthquake hit, right. (AP Photo/Google) Photograph: Uncredited/AP
Google has been adding tourism and beauty hotspots to the service for some time, as well as the insides of some public places like train stations, airports and brick and mortar stores allowing users to view the inside of buildings too.
Google recently announced that it was to begin using a new algorithm that can read the house numbers in images on the service, and then correlate these with real addresses in order to improve the accuracy of addresses supplied in Google searches.
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Google地圖推「時光機器」見證街景歲月成長

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Google地圖今天開始為街景圖提供時光機器功能。(圖擷取自WSJDigitalNetwork YouTube)
2014-04-24  09:53 〔本報訊〕身邊的一草一木改變了多少,你還記得嗎?谷歌(Google)今天替街景地圖服務新增時間軸「時光機器(Time Machine)」按鈕,讓網友能追溯過去7年Google所蒐集的街景圖,該功能正在陸續推出,暫時只能在PC電腦上使用。
Google地圖已推出9年,Google所提供的街景圖通常會有一段時間歷史,並非街道的最新景像,而是每隔一段時間才更新,Google就是善用上述特點,加入時間軸功能。
Google地圖街景圖的左上方有一個時鐘按鈕,按下後會出現時間軸,網友可透過拖曳它來瀏覽該地區過去幾年來的街景變化,最遠可支持到2007年,不過目前不是所有街道都有開放此功能。
Google也提供了幾個範例,例如:美國的世界貿易中心一號大樓、巴西的2014世足比賽場、日本的宮城縣女川町,都是因重建、趕工,而在近年內出現變化的著名地區。
街景產品經理薛特(Vinay Shet)認為,時間軸功能就像數位版的時光膠囊,有機會讓人如時光旅行般見證過去和未來。
目前已支援時光回溯的街景日本女川町巴西世足場

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