Spring Break
New-age site seeing
Ryan Gibbons and Glen Pfeiffer
Issue date: 9/4/08 Section: Verve
What do you do on the Internet? Research? Download music? Surf Facebook? There are a lot of marvelous services available, courtesy of the World Wide Web, and in case you haven't heard of those that we are about to share with you, you might consider checking them out the next time you are waiting for that girl or guy to "poke" you back.
Google Street View
Chances are you've been on Google Maps before -- it's a comparable direction finder to Mapquest.com. But Google Street View is not your father's search-for-the-nearest-restaurant tool (or, given the relative modernity of such sites, your older brother's). Street View provides a complete 360-degree panoramic ground level photographic view of any location on any street in most major U.S. cities and many international cities. That's right -- you can probably find a picture of your house on the Web right now. Just go to www.google.com, click on "Maps," search for a location, then click on the "Street View" option in the upper right-hand corner of the map, and then click on the location you searched for. Use your mouse to drag the panorama around, and click on the arrows to travel down streets.
For added fun, search the Web for "Google Street View Interesting Finds" and you will get some good links. Be prepared for pictures of crimes in progress, headless people (where two images blended together), giant pumpkins and images that just can't be explained.
Pandora Internet
Radio
Did you ever wish you could listen to a radio station that never played a song you didn't like?
One that was available 24/7 on any computer connected to the Internet? Well consider Pandora the answer to your prayers. Pandora is a revolutionary Internet radio service that lets you type in a favorite artist, song or composer and, within seconds, you can be listening to your selection as well as other bands or composers that have a similar musical style.
Pandora does this using the Music Genome Project - a sophisticated musical taxonomy eight years in the making, which allows Pandora to accurately match your selection with other similar artists and songs.
Google Street View
Chances are you've been on Google Maps before -- it's a comparable direction finder to Mapquest.com. But Google Street View is not your father's search-for-the-nearest-restaurant tool (or, given the relative modernity of such sites, your older brother's). Street View provides a complete 360-degree panoramic ground level photographic view of any location on any street in most major U.S. cities and many international cities. That's right -- you can probably find a picture of your house on the Web right now. Just go to www.google.com, click on "Maps," search for a location, then click on the "Street View" option in the upper right-hand corner of the map, and then click on the location you searched for. Use your mouse to drag the panorama around, and click on the arrows to travel down streets.
For added fun, search the Web for "Google Street View Interesting Finds" and you will get some good links. Be prepared for pictures of crimes in progress, headless people (where two images blended together), giant pumpkins and images that just can't be explained.
Pandora Internet
Radio
Did you ever wish you could listen to a radio station that never played a song you didn't like?
One that was available 24/7 on any computer connected to the Internet? Well consider Pandora the answer to your prayers. Pandora is a revolutionary Internet radio service that lets you type in a favorite artist, song or composer and, within seconds, you can be listening to your selection as well as other bands or composers that have a similar musical style.
Pandora does this using the Music Genome Project - a sophisticated musical taxonomy eight years in the making, which allows Pandora to accurately match your selection with other similar artists and songs.
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