beyond street view

11 Things: Beyond Street View

Thursday, June 7, 2007

1. Google Merge

Essentially: Merges the real world with the virtual world, making them utterly indistinguishable.

Pros: Allergies cured. Avatars improved dramatically.
Cons: Sim City declares bankruptcy. Live music no longer interesting.

2. Google Mindreader

Essentially: Reads your mind.

Pros: Click left arrow, get angelic thoughts. Click straight ahead, get food.
Cons: Click right arrow, get devilish thoughts. Click reverse, apologize.

3. Google Stethoscope

Essentially: Google Street View with a microphone.
Pros: Doves cooing.
Cons: Crack addicts screaming.

4. Google Jukebox

Essentially: Every song ever recorded on a jukebox.
Pros: Insane variety.
Cons: Yanni, Zamfir and Christian rock.

5. Google Animal View

Essentially: Google Street View with mini cameras on the heads of animals.

Pros: Better variety of images and angles.
Cons: Many animals don't return.

6. Google Bedroom View

Essentially: Google Street View with X-ray vision.

Pros: Web traffic explodes.
Cons: Grandparents making love.

7. Google Night Vision

Essentially: Google Street View with night vision goggles.

Pros: Chance to say "Google Goggles" more frequently.
Cons: Slightly militaristic.

8. Google MUNI

Essentially: Google Street View on the bus.

Pros: You learn how impossibly crowded the bus is before it arrives.
Cons: You learn how impossibly crowded the bus is before it arrives.

9. Google Grassy Knoll

Essentially: Determines who shot JFK.

Pros: Ends the debate once and for all.
Cons: Ends Oliver Stone's career once and for all.

10. Google Microsoft

Essentially: Google swallows up Microsoft.

Pros: PCs finally become user-friendly.
Cons: Google later swallows up Coke, Pepsi, the moon, the stars, the sun, your existence and all the tea in China.

11. Google Google

Essentially: You and a few thousand close friends show up at Google headquarters to take a few million photos (then upload them onto the Web).

Pros: Google staffers captured doing questionable things.
Cons: The inevitable double standard of Google asking you to cease and desist.

This article appeared on page G - 3 of the San Francisco Chronicle