Googles fordybende Street View kunne være et glimt af metaverse

Femten år efter lanceringen giver en Google Maps-funktion, der lader folk udforske fjerne steder, som om de stod lige dér, et glimt af metaverset, der bliver varslet som internettets fremtid.

Der var endnu ikke tale om, at livet på nettet skulle flytte til virtuelle verdener, da en "langsøgende" grubleri fra Googles medstifter Larry Page foranledigede Street View, som lader brugere af virksomhedens gratis navigationstjeneste se billeder af kortplaceringer fra perspektivet af at være der.

Nu er metaverset et buzz i teknologiverdenen, hvor virksomheder, herunder Facebook-moder Meta, investerer i at skabe online riger, hvor mennesker repræsenteret af videospillignende figurer arbejder, spiller, handler og mere.

"Larry Page tog et videokamera og stak det ud af vinduet i sin bil," sagde Googles senior tekniske programchef Steven Silverman, mens han viste AFP garagen, hvor virksomheden bygger kameraer til biler, cykler, rygsække og endda snescootere, der er sendt for at fange 360-graders billeder i hele verden.

"Han talte med nogle af sine kolleger på det tidspunkt og sagde:"Jeg vil vædde på, at vi kan gøre noget med det her." Det var starten på Street View."

Street View lader folk klikke på steder i Google Maps for at se, hvordan det kunne se ud, hvis de var på det sted, og endda se sig omkring.

Nu introducerer internet-behemothen en "omspændende udsigt", der fusionerer Street View-billeder med kunstig intelligens for at skabe "en rig, digital model af verden," sagde Miriam Daniel, Google Maps Experiences vicepræsident, i et indlæg.

"Du vil være i stand til at opleve, hvordan et kvarter, et vartegn, en restaurant eller et populært sted er - og endda føle, at du er lige der, før du nogensinde sætter din fod indenfor," sagde Daniel.

"Med en hurtig søgning kan du praktisk talt svæve over Westminster for at se kvarteret og den fantastiske arkitektur af steder, som Big Ben, tæt på."

Google vil begynde at udrulle fordybende visning senere i år, startende i Los Angeles, London, New York, San Francisco og Tokyo.

Fra kort til metaverse

Street View-billeder er blevet samlet i mere end 100 lande og territorier, lige fra steder som Mount Fuji og Grand Canyon National Park til Great Barrier Reef.

"If you want to see what it's like to go down a ski slope, you can see where that snowmobile has gone," Silverman said, nodding toward a maroon snowmobile in the garage in the Silicon Valley city of Mountain View, California.

"That trike was really funny because it went around Stonehenge; and we put it on a barge and went down the Amazon River," he said of another vehicle.

He pointed to a backpack camera system taken for a zip-line ride in the Amazon, to provide a bird's-eye perspective.

Years spent capturing the real world in 360-degree imagery bodes well for Google when it comes to a future in which internet life shifts to immersive digital worlds, said Creative Strategies tech analyst Carolina Milanesi.

"It absolutely plays into the metaverse," Milanesi said.

"The idea of a digital twin of the world is certainly one aspect of it that Google will solve."

Silverman reasoned that, in a sense, Street View has been giving users a virtual experience for more than a decade, and the imagery naturally lends itself to depicting the real world in virtual settings.

"Ideally, that metaverse, that world that we move into, we're going to be there," Silverman said.

Scores of tech firms have been rushing to invest in building the metaverse, a loose term covering the growing ecosystem of interactive online worlds, games and 3D meeting places that are already attracting millions of users.

Facebook renamed its parent company to Meta last year to emphasize its virtual reality vision, and opened Horizon World virtual reality platform to the North American public.

Earlier this year, Japanese giant Sony and Lego's Danish parent firm announced a $2 billion investment in US gaming powerhouse Epic Games for its work toward joining the metaverse vision for the internet's future.

In the form of video games such as Epic's hit Fortnite, the precursors of the metaverse already exist in minimalist ways, with people coming together not only to play, but also to interact and participate in events.

What started as a "far-fetched idea" by Page is "critical to our mapping efforts—letting you see the most up-to-date information about the world, while laying the foundation for a more immersive, intuitive map," Google Maps product director Ethan Russell said in a blog post. + Udforsk yderligere

Sony, Lego to put $2 bn into Epic Games metaverse effort

© 2022 AFP