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Drag the hero on to the map somewhere and he will land somewhere with streetview, which gets turned into 8bit, hilarious.
That's pretty great. I've wanted for a while to find a way to layer image effects onto Google Street View, to be able to move around the world in a sort of alternate processed reality. But afaik, there's no straightfoward way to add a filter like that unless you're Google. There's an image API, but the resolution is only 640x480. There's an undocumented image API with higher-res images, but you'll get banned if you make more than occasional usage of it. Perhaps it'd be possible to do it via a browser extension that renders the effects locally?

[edit: Just thought of one possible route. There's a WebGL beta for Street View; perhaps you could add effects by injecting some WebGL shader code, given appropriate local security permissions?]

So far I've been just experimenting with grabbing a few hundred images from the undocumented API and applying effects locally. This is the result of one experiment (hit [reload] at the top/right for new images): http://www.kmjn.org/projects/cyanocph/

nice! I really like that. Thanks for posting this.
Just figured that out. You have to disable MapsGL for that to work.
Google offices are apparently marked with surprisingly-unpixelated propellerheads. There's also some custom art for SF landmarks.
I was so hoping I could see the propellerheads in closer detail with the Street View, but alas...
Google is finally going to support the NES: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rznYifPHxDg
Even though I think this is great, it still kind of annoys me that they keep calling it a NES when they're clearly using a Famicom. I suspect that's actually going to confuse a lot of people.
It looks like the video was made by Japanese, but they probably used the name "NES" because it's more familiar to English-speaking audiences who're likely to make up the majority of video views.
This was probably made by their Google Japan branch, that's why they only had regular Famicom available.
It's a pretty impressive map for an April Fool's joke. Particularly like the 2d rendered buildings for landmarks like the Eiffel Tower, Sutro Tower in SF, etc. Presumably somewhat inspired by Brett Camper's 2010 project 8bitNYC. http://8bitcity.com/map?New%20York

The YouTube video is hilarious.

Google Streetview is also available in 8 bit mode:

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=googleplex&hl=en&ll=37...

...only in the Flash viewer though: not on WebGL (to save anyone clicking the link who's opted into the WebGL beta).
a possible word of warning: I disabled MapsGL to see it. In the past there has always been a button to get back into GL mode, but I can't find it anymore so I am now stuck in Flash.
Yes, me too. I assume it will be coming back post April 1st...
I was wondering what everyone was talking about. Thanks for the tip.

Incognito mode to the rescue!

This looks like an early April's fool to me.
Why early? It's already April 1st in eastern part of the world.
Everyone knows the Internet only work in California.
This service is developed by GoogleJapan. So, April's fool is earlier than the US'.
Try going to 0.00,0.00 and zoom in.

(spoilers warning)

This is what you get: http://i.imgur.com/JJxGn.png

There's also another one in a deeper zoom level.

Thank you, Google, for creating a world where a spoiler warning might be necessary before a link to your mainstream product.
Hahaha, the Dragonlord transformation is awesome!!
Notice the map data for that location is copyright Square Enix.
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Does anyone else see these projects, the always changing Google logo, and G+ as proof that Google just has way too much talent and not enough useful ideas?
I think Google likes to have fun.
Further, if your job is somewhere that you have fun and are free to occasionally make interesting-but-useless things, you're less likely to quit.
What a great way to demonstrate that talent in unique ways and keep employees happy with an awesome atmosphere!
No. Keeping the system from visually stagnating, and having fun with your users, is one of those useful ideas... Besides, I doubt the artists are taking resources from feature developers. If anything, they're probably sitting idle between roll-outs.
You are right. However, successfully selling products to people isn't fun. See Apple. If some Google homies got together in their spare or 20% time (does that still exist?) and utilized the Google tools to make this, then sweet. But, if some engineers getting paid $80k+ used their work time to build this, doesn't that suggest Google has too much talent?

I like fun (and Google), but investors like profits.

These projects and the changing Google logo can be thought of as marketing expenses to maintain Google's brand, which helps them continue to attract users and developers.

G+ is built for strategic reasons (and not something they're just doing because they don't know have 'enough useful ideas'.) You can debate whether G+ is the right thing for them to do, but they're building it because Google leadership thinks they should.

As of an hour and a half ago, it's April 1 in Japan.
Dragon Warrior! Man, I loved that game, despite its flaws. The gameplay was really slow-paced, and the random battles were kind of annoying. But it was unabashedly itself, and I guess I fell in love with the world and the good ol’ swords-and-sorcery style. It helps that the NES is just an excellent system—mine’s still in perfect working order.
Yeah the music in the video really brought me back for a second. I was just thinking about my old NES wondering where in my parents house it could be and if I could play earthbound.
I created a tumblr to collect all the monsters!

http://map-monster.tumblr.com/

Found a monster? Leave a link into the comments.

Try:

Volgograd

Pogradec

Randazzo

Paceco

Balfour, Mpumalanga, South Africa (zoom out)

Makasa, Northern, Zambia (zoom out)

Goch

Mallow, Ireland

Just found them by searching around. Not sure if there's any logic to where they're placed, besides on land.

There's one at Fuji mountain in Japan.
I tried dragging the street view dude onto the monster, but unfortunately no battle ensued ;(
HaHa! Google is awesome! Other outlets are just running bizarre news stories today, but Google actually developed and released something so cool!
Just look on the copyright message in bottom right: SQUARE ENIX. Final fantasy.
Actually Dragon Warrior not FF, which was an Enix property pre-merger.
I'm curious how this was found?
There's a quest button in the top right when using Maps, as of a hour or so ago I guess.
Matt Cutts tweeting is how I found out.
A nice little detail for Pittsburghers: http://i.imgur.com/fQR4u.png

I wonder how many cities they made landmarks for?

Zoom in on London and you'll find a bunch of landmarks
I wonder how many cities they made landmarks for?

It looks like landmarks are a feature of big cities only - no love for the Basketball Hall of Fame or Springfield Armory.

Nothing for Baltimore, as far as I could find :(
I was saddened by that, too. No Wire reference at least? But hey, they didn't even give Niagara Falls special treatment.
Haha, they're insane.. I love this. Great April fools'
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You can use these 8bit tiles in your own project, its quite easy to switch the tile layer of any google maps site: http://blog.bn.ee/2012/03/31/how-to-use-google-maps-8-bit-ti...

I updated walksy.com to use these tiles: http://walksy.com/?8bit

Somehow I got the map to split-screen with street view, and all the street view's in 8-bit, too.
Somehow I got the map to split-screen with street view, and all the street view's in 8-bit, too.
Somehow I got the map to split-screen with street view, and all the street view's in 8-bit, too.