
Night Walk in Marseille [video] - WikiChen
https://nightwalk.withgoogle.com/en
======
Magi604
This was great.

I didn't care much for the narration, but perhaps that's because when I travel
I prefer to explore things on my own. The captions and videos were helpful
though.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that you didn't have to follow the
green track (though you miss out on the pictures and videos). I discovered it
by accident, actually. At some point in time I found out that I had become
disoriented and had been going backwards for some time. Rather than go through
the entire track again, I wanted to see if I could take a shortcut. It works.

You know what would be cool? Incorporating some sort of "Choose Your Own
Adventure" elements into something like this. Kind of like Myst, but in real-
world settings.

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cclogg
I wonder if someday we can get to the point where StreetView is a continuous
flow... like instead of tapping the arrow and waiting for the next slide to
load, you would just smoothly walk forward or backwards along a track using
up/down arrow.

I guess it would be technically possible already, but Google would have to
snap their images with much smaller distances, and make them load in much
faster... space requirements would be huge lol.

~~~
mankyd
Microsoft's PhotoSynth has an impressive demo of this. Check out:
[http://photosynth.net/preview/view/31e5927d-af4b-4678-8bba-c...](http://photosynth.net/preview/view/31e5927d-af4b-4678-8bba-c693983b8f2e)

~~~
Blahah
It seems like all you can do is play the sequence forward or backward - surely
a simple video is much better than this?

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sehr
Most immersive experience I've had on the internet so far, the added videos &
interviews absolutely made it.

~~~
cshimmin
Honestly. This reminds me of the old educational software disks my folks would
check out for me at the library back in the late 90's. And I mean that the
best way possible!

~~~
phaer
Oh yes, nice memories! Microsoft Encarta had a few of those "walks" and I used
it extensively until it was slowly replaced by Wikipedia.

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bemmu
Did my own graffiti spotting during this walk:
[http://i.imgur.com/JX9uJLn.png](http://i.imgur.com/JX9uJLn.png)

Same guy disappearing into the wall in two different places, I wonder if there
is more of him?

~~~
TeMPOraL
Someone's thinking with P _0_ rtals. ;).

~~~
bemmu
There he goes again:
[http://i.imgur.com/VyWbMrR.png](http://i.imgur.com/VyWbMrR.png)

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hawkharris
A few weeks ago I purchased a Leap Motion Controller: one of those devices
that tracks your finger movements and translates them into actions on your
laptop screen. I was pretty impressed with the device's accuracy, but I ended
up returning it because I didn't see how it had practical applications for my
own work. After the initial excitement of moving windows with your hands
(pretending you're in a sci-fi movie) fades off, the old-fashioned method of
clicking is simply easier and more convenient.

Viewing this "Night Walk" demonstration, I felt an inkling of regret about
returning Leap Motion. As others have noted, the experience is very immersive
and exciting. The only thing holding it back, in my opinion, is the medium of
mouse and keyboard. I wanted to move fluidly through Marseille instead of
incrementally, through clicking and jerky motions of the mouse. If this kind
of 3D / WebGL / geospatial content becomes more prevalent on the web, I can
see a stronger practical use case for everyone owning Leap, or something like
it.

~~~
spyder
I think for this use case the Oculus with it's head tracking would be a better
fit, because when you walk in a city you don't really use your hands like you
do with the LeapMotion.

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mikkom
> Ah snap. The Night Walk experience is not optimised for your device or
> operating system.

Great. Please don't tell me what's wrong with my browser or os.

~~~
chippy
it's probably over a year old .... or not running webGL

~~~
mikkom
Sorry but I don't want to play the guessing game with random commenter any
more than I want to with Google.

(The browser is latest firefox/iceweasel on Debian testing)

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leoc
A camera taking lurching steps through the Marseilles nightlife? Meh, it's
been done. ;)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuOecH5NoXs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuOecH5NoXs)

~~~
VeejayRampay
More like
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guM99-MqLtI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guM99-MqLtI)
am I right. And that's immersive as well.

~~~
p4bl0
It's true that Belsunce is at 5 minutes of walk from the Cours Julien and La
Plaine where the night walk takes place.

This track is amazing. Not lyrics wise: neither the text nor rhymes nor the
flow are especially good. Considering that it is a rap song these could be
severe drawbacks. But the instrumental is so effective the track is globally
awesome.

 _D 'où j'sors ? D'une ronde. Belsunce breakdown._

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doe88
Sweet, it's great to see his hometown in a post on HN :)

~~~
p4bl0
Héhé same here! Aïoli !

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amgin3
I think it is broken in Chrome on Linux.. unless it is supposed to be a series
of stretched out looking pictures taking up a small portion of the screen that
spin around on their central axis and flip upside-down when you drag your
mouse, and you can only navigate with keyboard arrows..

~~~
Zigurd
I'm using in in Chrome version 33.0.1750.152 on Ubuntu 14.04 Linux with no
apparent problems.

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ebabchick
Does anyone know what team(s) are responsible for these kinds of projects at
Google?

~~~
WikiChen
Would love to know this as well!

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ISL
Page seems non-functional, wants me to plug in headphones? Chromium Version
33.0.1750.152, linux box.

Edit: reloading made it work.

~~~
rev087
That seems to be the "loading indicator". I was confused for a second, then it
just faded away. I don't think there's a browser API to actually know wether
the user has headphones plugged in or not.

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tommydiaz
Anyone know what this is and why it's blurred out?
[http://imgur.com/yi0sCEC](http://imgur.com/yi0sCEC)

Also, videos are not playing right for me on firefox (audio only).

~~~
seszett
Maybe it was recognized by Google's algorithms as numbers, or something.

House street numbers and car plates are blurred on Street View in France, and
often some small squares with text are also blurred by error.

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mentos
Cool! Very immersive and this is coming from an oculus rift owner.

I was thinking the next step up from this would be to setup 360 degree cameras
every 10 or so feet along this path and have them all record for say an hour.
Then you could 'walk' from point to point and see/hear/track the city.

But I actually think this curated approach is much better as it helps you cut
out the noise and tell a better story.

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p4bl0
This is awesome even if you know the place pretty well, and the sounds and
music totally enhance the experience! Thanks for sharing.

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evanlivingston
This is pretty cool.

Neal Stephenson's "Command Line" comes to mind, where he talks about how
experiences are distilled and summarized for an end user. I have a vague
negative feeling toward this, but I can present no argument.

~~~
faddotio
This is the Web version of walking around a museum with an audio guide around
your neck.

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sethbannon
Totally engrossing.

~~~
jevinskie
Agreed. The audio alone was enough to immerse me. Right now it is in a
background tab and I change the location every few minutes to change the
sound!

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richtr
Please hook this (and Street View) up to
[https://github.com/richtr/threeVR](https://github.com/richtr/threeVR).

How it works: [http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/w3c-device-orientation-
us...](http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/w3c-device-orientation-usage/)

Live demo:
[http://richtr.github.io/threeVR/examples/vr_basic.html](http://richtr.github.io/threeVR/examples/vr_basic.html)

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Nux
"Ah snap. The Night Walk experience is not optimised for your device or
operating system."

No night walk if you're not in the googleverse.

~~~
icebraining
Works in Firefox.

~~~
Nux
Not on mine. 24.4.0 @ Linux x86_64

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leoc
"Your headphones will give you the best experience." I'm wearing my
headphones, thanks Google. Can I watch this now?

~~~
spike021
Happened to me at first too. Refreshing the page worked. Not sure if that's an
intentional pause or not.

~~~
icebraining
I think it's loading. My wifi LED was flashing furiously while that message
appeared.

------
ilbe
This is a taste of augmented reality. I like it. I'm left a bit unsatisfied
though. I want to experience the real thing now.

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acqq
Anybody can point to anything else "interesting" in the presentation than the
"graffiti" and the technical side of making a lot of 360 deg night-shot
panoramas with sound?

And is there a possibility to make the link to some particular spot?

(I can't imagine graffiti interesting to those who aren't themselves doing
them. It's subjective, I know, and I respect that others have other views,
I've heard about Banksy etc).

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stblack
Nice implementation.

Marseille has a severe graffiti problem, doesn't it? Mais c'est dégueulasse!

~~~
p4bl0
Why would this be a problem? This district of Marseille is really nice, and
graffitis contribute to the overall atmosphere.

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hauget
can anyone give me ideas\links on what HW & SW I would need to make something
like this? Would love to make an adventure game with this concept! Cheers!

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itsbonczek
This is the type of thing that Google Glass was made for.

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robertfw
Would love to try this out in VR!

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malabar
loved this, hope for more

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faddotio
Very engrossing.

