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Tour Westminster Abbey with Google Street View
If you've ever wanted to tour Westminster Abbey but can't afford the £20 admission price (or, y'know, go to one of its many church services), Google has you covered. The giant church has become the latest London landmark to be photographed for Street View, allowing you to explore its tombs, shrines and pointed arches from the comfort of your desk (or mobile device).
Google headquarters faces string of attacks
However much you might be concerned about Google's stance on privacy, it shouldn't cross into violence... unfortunately, however, one person appears to have taken those worries one step too far. Prosecutors have charged Raul Murillo Diaz with arson after he reportedly tried to set fire to one of Google's Street View cars at its Mountain View campus on May 19th. In a sworn statement, Diaz was upset that Google was supposedly watching him -- he went so far as to write journal entries when he thought the company was tracking his moves.
Explore the 'Batman v Superman' Batcave on Street View
Whether you think Batman v Superman is a masterpiece or an underwhelming mess, it's hard not to be impressed by the new Batcave. It's a stylish take on the Dark Knight's lair and now, you can explore it for yourself through Google Street View. You'll start on the surface, inside Bruce Wayne's lake house. Click through and you'll quickly stumble upon the subterranean base, complete with the Batmobile and a glass cabinet containing a Joker-graffitied Robin costume. The armored Batsuit and Batcomputer reside upstairs, along with plenty of other weapons and R&D projects. The grapple guns on the ground floor are a personal favorite.
Google Street View takes you on a South African safari
So you've wanted to see African wildlife in its native habitat, but the prospect of booking such an expensive trip makes your bank account weep. What to do? Google can help. It just introduced the Mzansi Experience, a virtual visit to South Africa that uses Street View to give you a sense of the country's grandiose landscape. On top of seeing elephants, leopards and other fauna, it'll take you to everything from Cape Town's Table Mountain through to Durban's Golden Mile. While this still won't be as awe-inspiring as a real safari, it'll require much less effort... and it might even inspire you to go when your finances allow.
Google Street View might add a virtual Disney World tour
Whenever the Google View Street View Trekker is spotted in a certain location, a virtual tour of that place is sure to follow. Well, Orlando Weekly has reported that someone who was wearing the photo-capturing backpack was seen walking around the Magic Kingdom earlier this month with some cast members. Folks on Twitter were also quick to report their Trekker sightings in various parts of both the Magic Kingdom and Epcot parks, which means we might be able to tele-visit Orlando's Disney World via Street View in the future.
Google gives My Maps for Android a much-needed revamp
Google's My Maps for Android hasn't received a lot of affection lately, but the company is making up for that in style. It quietly released a big upgrade to the custom mapping app that, on top of a "new look and feel," throws in features that arguably should have been there ages ago. You can see Street View imagery for all your map points, to start with -- you'll know what your destinations look like on the ground without having to jump to Google Maps. You can also see photos and videos that were added on the web, and the app should be much faster as a whole. Give it a spin if you're planning a big trip, or just want to document your favorite haunts.
Google brings 40 US national parks to Street View
Google just made it easier to visit some of the US' biggest landmarks without hopping on an airplane. It's teaming up with the National Park Service to offer 360-degree Street View imagery for 40 national parks and historic sites, ranging from Alcatraz's legendary prison to the ancient cliff dwellings of Montezuma Castle. The collection also touts photos of artifacts from those locations. Want to see furniture from Abraham Lincoln's house? You can. No, this won't recreate the grandeur you'd get from being there yourself, but it beats having to rely on tourists' photos to get a feel for what you're missing.
Explore New York's Guggenheim museum with Google's help
When it isn't capturing (tiny) city streets and picturesque locations, Google's Street View team also catalogs the collections of some of the world's most iconic cultural buildings. With help from the Google Cultural Institute, we've already explored the 4,500 artifacts inside the British Museum, but for its latest project, the organisation has hopped back across the Atlantic to New York and inside the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.
Climb Europe's highest peak on Google Street View
Someday we might be able to explore Machu Picchu or walk around the plains of New Zealand ourselves. But climb a steep, icy mountain that's known as the highest peak in the European Union? Yeah, we'll stick to Google Street View. Google has joined forces with mountaineers, skiers, climbers and alpine photographers to capture the great Mont Blanc on camera. Its Street View page offers four different experiences: you can run up and down the summit, climb ice cliffs and even ski.
Google uses tiny cameras to capture adorable mini Street View
When you think of Google Street View, you'll probably get visions of the company's camera-mounted cars or its colossal Trekker backpacks. The search giant has sent them to some of the world's most picturesque locations, but for its latest Street View project, things have got a whole lot smaller. With help from a specially-modified model train and bus, Google has captured a 360-degree Street View map of Hamburg's Miniatur Wunderland, the world's largest miniature railway.
Explore Machu Picchu's Inca remains through Street View
Google's Street View "Trekker" backpacks sure get around. After snapping the British Museum and the ancient city of Petra, they've now been to Machu Picchu in Peru. It's an iconic peak rising 2,430 meters (7,970 feet) above sea level, where travellers can gaze upon the remains of the Inca Empire. With Street View, you can take the trip from the comfort of your living room, picking through the crumbling walls and soaking up the various temples, terraces and plazas at your own pace. It's an architectural marvel and as you would expect, Google's stitched panoramas do a good job of capturing the atmosphere. Useful if you're a history teacher, or just trying to persuade your significant other to take a vacation there.
Google Street View gives you a tour of ancient Jordan landmarks
Jordan is home to some extremely significant historical and religious sites. However, visiting those landmarks in person is no mean feat -- which is why Google just added many of them to Street View. Fire up your web browser and you can get virtual, 360-degree tours of more than 30 ancient locations, including the city of Petra (above), Jerash and legendary castles from the Crusades. We suspect that this will pale in comparison to the grandeur of seeing these relics first-hand, but you should at least have an inkling of what the experience would be like.
Explore 4,500 British Museum artifacts with Google's help
The British Museum in London holds an array of beautiful and historically significant artifacts including the Rosetta Stone, which helped historians to understand the ancient hieroglyphics used in Egypt. Today, the organisation is teaming up with Google to bring its various collections online as part of the Google Cultural Institute. The search giant has been developing this resource for years by continually visiting and archiving exhibits around the world. With the British Museum, an extra 4,500 objects and artworks are being added to its collection, complete with detailed photos and descriptions.
Explore New Zealand's 'Great Walks' with Google Street View
If you want to take a trip to Middle Earth tonight but don't have a passport, Google's got you covered with a new addition to Street View. The internet juggernaut's partnered with New Zealand's Department of Conservation to use Google Trekker to create some pretty rad 360 degree panoramas of the country's most stunning vistas, the "Great Walks." It isn't the first time Mountain View's gone someplace that inspired a movie before, and hopefully it won't be the last. The real question here is if that's an ent moot off in the distance or just your eyes playing tricks on you.
Google buys a panorama startup to bolster Street View
Think that Google Street View could use a fresh coat of paint? Google does, too. The search firm has just snapped up Digisfera, a Portugese startup whose specialty is making the most out of panoramic photos. The newly-acquired company isn't saying exactly what it'll do within the Street View team, but its work on some more ambitious projects may be a clue. It produced a giant tagged panorama at the 2014 World Cup, for example, and captured a sweeping view of President Obama's inauguration.
Google's Trekker program takes you on a tour across the US
The individuals and organizations that borrowed Trekkers from Google's loaner program have been a big help to Street View's growth, capturing various places around the globe that you can tour online. Now, Mountain View has launched the five newest Street View locations that came out of the project, which can take you on a virtual journey across the US. You can take a tour of the Armstrong Redwoods State Natural Reserve with its ancient redwoods and meadows, or of Kansas City that takes you to the top of the Liberty Memorial Tower and to the famous Shuttlecocks installation.
Google releases improved Cardboard SDK and adds Street View
Google announced today that its Cardboard VR app is now available in 100 countries for both iOS and Android. The company also stated that the app's software development kit has been improved. According to the Google Developer's Blog, the new SDK now features better drift control thanks to "a major overhaul of the sensor fusion algorithms that integrate the signals from the gyroscope and accelerometer." This should diminish the amount of "drift" wherein the displayed images continue to move even after your head has stopped turning.
Google's new Street View app lets you add your own spherical photos
In the midst of IFA's volley of tech hardware news, Google Maps has announced a spin-off Street View app that allows you to upload your own spherical photos. Yes, you're now a human Street View car. The app lets you not only shoot photo spheres from your phone but also connect directly to spherical cameras, like Ricoh's Theta camera series. The announcement came alongside the latest Theta camera, which is of course compatible with the new feature. It sounds like Street View will turn into a combination of Google's own photography and crowdsourced spheres. Charles Armstrong, Google Maps product manager, said the new app will allow "people all over the world to explore user contributions, Google's own imagery, and their own published photo spheres through a seamless world map of landscapes, landmarks, business interiors and more."
Google's testing pollution-sensing gear in its Street View cars
A firm that builds environmental sensors is teaming up with Google to turn Street View cars into mobile pollution sniffers. Three of the search engine's mapping vehicles have been equipped with hardware to measure harmful compounds in the atmosphere including carbon monoxide, methane and VOCs. It's early days, but it's hoped that Google will be able to add this information to its maps, enabling people to see detailed air quality reports for their neighborhood. That way, you could plan your next jog to avoid trouble spots and authorities can visualize where they need to direct their clean-up efforts.
Video series gives you a rare peek into Google's world
As open as Google is about its plans, it doesn't say much about what it's like to actually work there. Just what are those engineers doing every day? Googlers Nat and Lo might just answer that for you. They've kicked off The 20% Project, a video series that explores some of the behind-the-scenes action in Mountain View and beyond. The first two episodes delve into work on the Street View Trekker as well as what Google X's Design Kitchen does (spoiler: it breaks a lot of early prototypes). Future shows will explore things as exotic as self-driving cars. You're not going to learn about any secret projects, but this is fascinating stuff if you've ever wished that Google would give the public more than blog posts and glitzy promo clips.
