Goggles Provides New Way To Explore Google’s Maps

August 21st, 2006 Davis Posted in Video Games |

One of the things that I really enjoy about Google’s mapping software is that they’ve made the API available for people to create really cool mashups with their software. Whether this is Zooomr using it in their geotag functionality or Paul Rademacher’s mashing up Craiglist to create a rental housing map, the ability to combine one technology with another is part of why Google has been so successful with things like their mapping software.

I like mashups as much as the next blogger, so I was excited to see Real Tech News point me to a really cool Google Map flight simulator program. The program comes with about a half a dozen preset cities loaded into the software, but you can actually put in the coordinates of your own hometown and will be doing flybys through your own neighborhood in record time. To call Goggles simplistic would probably be an understatment and the application isn’t the best flight simulator out there, but it’s a fun addictive way to explore Google’s maps and at free, it’s hard to argue with the price. I’ve played around with this for about a day now and have already wasted too much time firebombing the San Francisco bay, yet I still find the game entertaining. While it won’t replace my Xbox 360 anytime soon, it is a good way to kill time and explore your favorite cities at the same time.