Saturday, March 21, 2009

Google Maps












I was trying to get some driving directions today and decided to use Google maps instead of Yahoo. I found a feature on Google maps that I had never seen before. It actually was a little scary to me. You start with a map of the US. You have a little scroll bar, and at the top there is a yellow figure of a person. You can click and drag that person to any street in the US. (I haven't tried it for other countries yet). It will give you a view of that street as if you were standing on the street. The scary thing is that it actually showed my cars parked in the driveway at my house! The pictures must have been taken awhile ago because this picture was before we got our Yaris. I don't know why it creeps me out, but try it for yourself. I couldn't figure out how to put in the address, but it does show a green marker for where you are at, so you can drag the yellow figure to that green marker. I kept zooming in because I knew the neighborhood. I finally came to my street. Try it....see how accurate it is, you might be shocked! Oh, and once I decided to just do a random drag of the figure and dropped it randomly in the middle of the United states, and came up with a road named, "Hells Half Acre"....that's even scarier! :) For those of you homesick for our parents' town, you can sort of "drive" down main street with this program. :) Oh, and you can use the arrows to look to your right or left. It's weird, the picture was taken from the middle of the highway, and as I turned the picture to see my parents' house, and the flats, I kept having this feeling like I should look for an oncoming semi. lol Above is the screen cap I took.

3 comments:

Fromagette said...

It might be a little scary, but honestly it is a lifesaver when going to a new place. That way you can look for landmarks, etc and it is much easier to recognize where you are going.

Othersideblue said...

but i'd rather be a road traveler in real

Amber said...

I have done this with old places we used to live and my grandma's street, it is fun :)