Google Maps Street View now allows users to back in time, as far back as 2007 at least. The search giant recently announced the time capsule feature. This feature, which is currently available for desktops only, allows users to search for pictures of more current landmark being built up. The feature can also be used to view a “digital timeline of recent history” to see reconstruction efforts in Japan after the 2011 tsunami.
How to try the new feature
Users who want to try the new feature must first go on Street View and can click on the little clock icon at the corner of the screen. A click will bring up the scroll bar-controlled time machine that allows users to change the year or season.
The Guardian elaborated, “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 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.”
Google Maps Street View continues expansion
Google search is one of the leading search engines in the world. And with special features like Google Maps, it is easy to see how the search giant takes the lead. This new addition to Street View will be a great learning tool as well as a source of entertainment.
The search giant has been adding tourist spots and interiors of select public places to Street View for quite some time now. Google hopes to continue dominating the search engine market and a large portion of the web.
