Hasta La Gadget!

Google has alohomora’d a way for everyone (even muggles) to visit Diagon Alley without the need for magic wands. You can now explore the famous Harry Potter set at Warner Bros. London studio via Street View, and virtually visit its shops like Ollivander’s or the garishly colored Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes. It’s not the first Street View location within a building — in fact, Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello residence is now open for digital visitors — but movie sets are a rare treat. This is probably the next best thing for those who want to see Diagon Alley in person but can’t fly to London, even though the studio lights and the green screen behind Gringotts could ruin childhoods. Unless, of course, Schmidt, Page and Brin are actually wizards who added those final touches to make a real magical marketplace look fake.

Filed under: Internet, Google

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Via: Mashable

Source: Google Maps

Street View’s fine for navigation, but we’re sure plenty more people use it just for their armchair tourism. Google has now turned its attention to giving thrill-seekers a chance to gaze out from the top of Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building. Using Trekker backpacks and trolleys, it took the Googlers three days to capture the images from both the viewing gallery on the 124th floor and the window cleaning gantry on the 80th. Curious to experience some of that vertigo for yourself? Video’s after the break.

Filed under: Cameras, GPS, Google

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Via: Official Google Blog

Source: Google Street View

The folks from Mountain View are constantly adding more and more features to Street View — and, well, today’s no exception. Via its Maps blog, Google announced that it’s giving Street View a hefty boost by adding over 1,000 fresh destinations to the mix, noting that the idea is to make it “more comprehensive and useful for you.” There’s new imagery from places in Asia, Europe, Latin America, Canada and, of course, the US, allowing users to check out sites like the Seville Cathedral (Spain), Bosque de Chapultepec (Mexico), The Mark Twain House (USA) and many, many others. Google’s highlighted some of these new destinations on its website, so pay the source link below a visit if you’re interested in a quick, virtual tour around the world.

Filed under: Internet, Google

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Source: Google

While Google has practically blanketed New York City with eye-level imagery, few would doubt that there’s still ground left to cover. The search giant is filling in some of those gaps with new Google Maps galleries for a trio of historic areas. A collaboration with Historypin lets the curious glimpse photos and videos of regions affected by Hurricane Sandy; those who want to visit the 9/11 Memorial, meanwhile, can see Street View panoramas of both the North and South pools. Google is also expanding its Street View coverage of Central Park to include its many legendary trails, not just the roadways. If you’ve been meaning to pay a virtual tribute to any of these three spots, they’re waiting for you at the source links.

Filed under: Internet, Google

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Source: Google, Historypin

We had the opportunity to grab an early look at the new and refreshed Google Maps, but not everyone is as fortunate; you either had to be an I/O attendee or hope you received an invitation after requesting one. However, a tipster has sent Android Police a set of instructions that’ll let you get in on the new Maps without those pre-requisites. All you need is the ability to manually set cookies via a Chrome extension like this one or an alternate browser. Then visit the Google Maps page, replace the cookie labeled NID with a special code (we’ve included it after the break), and voilà, the brand new Google Maps will appear before your eyes. Now you too will be able to enjoy more visually enticing navigation — just don’t expect it to feel like a skydive.

Filed under: Google

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Source: Android Police