It if weren’t already obvious when a TARDIS was spotted on Google Maps last year, Google has a passion for combining cartography and time travel. Now it’s doing that even more explicitly with a newly released feature that allows visitors to travel back in time using Street View. Having amassed a vast collection of photos stretching all the way back to the prehistoric days of 2007, Google Map’s newest feature lets users click through photos taken across a single location for the past seven years.
Even in that relatively short amount of time, there have been some very noticeable changes—like the construction of the Freedom Tower in New York City, or the emergence of the 2014 World Cup Stadium in Brazil. By clicking the clock button in the upper left-hand corner, users can examine seasonal changes on the Italian roadways or juxtapose pre- and post-tsunami Japan. The feature isn’t available everywhere, but dedicated Google fans have already started collecting the most interesting changes in GIF form. [via Gizmodo]
