

Google Maps: “Treasure Map” mode - mathias
https://maps.google.com/maps?t=8

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dag11
This is beautiful, though, I'm oddly disappointed that when showing a route to
a destination, it doesn't mark the destination with "x marks the spot".

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maxmzd_
<http://goo.gl/maps/67c3y>

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alexk7
It's a hack. The line and X are in screen space and change position when you
zoom in and out.

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buro9
What's rather special about this is StreetView.

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ot
When you zoom in, the dust spots _rotate_. Awesome.

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codesuela
Made me touch my monitor, silly me

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ynniv
Some landmarks have coordinates on them. I followed the chain for a while, but
then I lost it.

[https://maps.google.com/maps?ll=42.359305,-71.067467&t=8...](https://maps.google.com/maps?ll=42.359305,-71.067467&t=8&z=14)

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aprescott
I followed this to a geometer's compass at 29.14,129.19, but there doesn't
seem to be any other coordinates. (One before that was at 24.3775,124.1555.)

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dm2
I found that, a red sword, and a red coin which didn't have coordinates. Tried
following the lines they made but didn't have any luck.

It's also weird that there are large numbers sometimes and red numbers
sometimes, they definitely mean something. From the video they posted this
won't be an easy puzzle to solve.

~~~
toxic_madness
I followed a trail starting at a skull in Amsterdam, and ended up at a red
revolver.

Edit: Coordinates of revolver: -5.06,-64.36

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v33ra
Here's Gangnam style:
[https://maps.google.com/maps?q=hong+kong&ll=37.504415,12...](https://maps.google.com/maps?q=hong+kong&ll=37.504415,127.035427&spn=0.045961,0.104628&hnear=Hong+Kong&gl=us&t=8&z=14)

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27182818284
This is such a little thing that is going to be absolutely great for my nieces
and nephews.

When getting directions, the markers and line between the start and end points
are the same. They should add in a dashed line and a big black X for the
destination as soon as possible :-)

A weekend trip to a national park can be made that much more fun by having a
family treasure hunt with the kids in the back seat "navigating" the way.

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calvinlough
It's just an April Fools thing, so it will probably only be accessible for the
next day or so.

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bajsejohannes
Very cute little icons for landmarks in the cities. They put a bird on
Portland.

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pavel_lishin
I don't understand why New York has a pirate skull with numbers in the eye
sockets: <http://i.imgur.com/xNnJvU7.png>

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toxic_madness
Go to the coordinates in the eye sockets, and it takes you to another landmark
with coordinates.

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pavel_lishin
Didn't seem to work for me.

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toxic_madness
The coordinates that are indicated in the landmarks are a bit hard to read
sometimes, and you have to piece them together. The skull in New York is
pointing to: (-15.36, 15.90). After searching for that location, zoom in on
the green arrow, and you should see a piece of ham that is pointing to:
(-21.53, 46.05)

The coordinates at the sword that comes next are also ambiguous. You have to
infer that the 9 in the handle is indicating that the first number is 9.81.

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pavel_lishin
Oh, I see - thank you!

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dm2
Supposedly there are Treasure Chests somewhere. Not sure if you have to be in
Street View to find them or not. Might be an early April fools though...

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anemic
any thoughts how you would implement this? To apply the sepia filter to the
street view images would double the storage used for all the images, which is
huge! Alternatively to apply the sepia filter each time a image is loaded
would add a lot of load to the servers, especially if the joke is spread
around the world? So some kind of caching would be in place? Or is it done in
browser with the flash plugin which would be the most boring option, but also
the most plausible... (that would also explain why the webgl version does not
work)

The world map is just images at different zoom levels with an algorithm that
adds trees, that would not be a problem I guess?

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blauwbilgorgel
If you load a streetview you might see a split second of color, before the
(flash) sepia filter gets added.

If you turn on 3D mode (right mouse -> 3D mode on) the ring and dust/scratches
remain, but the sepia filter is removed.

If the maptype parameter is 8 (&t=8) assets get loaded from the "papermaps"
directory:

    
    
      https://maps.gstatic.com/intl/en_ALL/mapfiles/papermaps/
    

Instead of:

    
    
      https://maps.gstatic.com/intl/en_ALL/mapfiles/
    

This way I found an image of the map controls that isn't implemented:

    
    
      https://maps.gstatic.com/intl/en_ALL/mapfiles/papermaps/mapcontrols3d2.png
    

Notice the squiggly lines and the streetview icon.

The world map seems to be indeed just images. Compare:

    
    
      http://maps.gstatic.com/mapfiles/mv/hpimgs6.png
      http://maps.gstatic.com/mapfiles/papermaps/hpimgs.png

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nelse
I love this company for such projects!

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christiangenco
Am I missing something? This looks identical to regular google maps:
<http://i.imgur.com/8gi8dfV.jpg>

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dag11
It should look like this:

<http://i.imgur.com/HvSAZod.jpg>

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matthieurouif
Guys, we have started a map with all the red end points. It's here
<http://bit.ly/123SO9w> . Feel free to had your end points . so far we have
two medals, a ring, two guns/revolver, a rope, a snake, a compass. It seems
that some object have the shape of their initial letter (snake = S, rope = R)

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sebastienr
Just added the gun in Brazil !

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matthieurouif
Thanks a lot, we now have 8

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em-
Spoilers: There's a bunch of people collecting clues/locations together in
this shared spreadsheet -
[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ajc_VqH8uv38dFd...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ajc_VqH8uv38dFdnbnBhMlBLNjRMRmFISEFXNUFSMEE&usp=sharing)

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pom
So I found 2 red letters (C at -28.30,-57.30; M at 34.61,135.73), as well as
three red signs (- sign at 35.11,-75.98, 9 at 76.50,-24.01, and 1 at
68.92,40.64) so there’s probably a super secret location given by the red
coordinates but I don’t know what the letters mean.

~~~
toxic_madness
Spoilers:

Check out this communally gathered data:
[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ajc_VqH8uv38dFd...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ajc_VqH8uv38dFdnbnBhMlBLNjRMRmFISEFXNUFSMEE#gid=0)

Apparently, all of the big red letters at the end of the trails spell out
"APRIL FOOLS". The smaller red letters and numbers spell "MMC-900913", which
is a reference to last year's 8-bit map.

In this video, you can see MMC-900913 printed on the a controller chip at 29s.
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rznYifPHxDg&feature=youtu...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rznYifPHxDg&feature=youtu.be)

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maxmzd_
Found it: <http://goo.gl/maps/67c3y>

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neilk
The "pirate supply store" at 826 Valencia is a landmark.

<http://goo.gl/maps/1XBK4>

<http://826valencia.org/store/>

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Vlaix
When unzooming completely (using Opera), France and Great Britain are
conjoined twins. And so on for Morocco and Spain, Denmark and Norway, Sicily
and the rest of Italy...

Now think about what History would have been...

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evan_
Here's the blog post about it:

[http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2013/03/find-treasure-
wit...](http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2013/03/find-treasure-with-google-
maps.html)

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taf2
just incase it doesn't work for someone else, you need to be using the
"classic" maps mode - if you are using opengl mode it will not work...

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spicyj
Beautiful. Is this an April Fools' joke or a permanent Easter Egg? (In the
latter case, I suppose it'd be fitting that today is Easter.)

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branciforte3241
It's an April Fools' joke.

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benthere
I followed the clues to here 50.62,-113.81 - just north of this spot, "X"
marks the spot if you look using satellite view

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lubujackson
They shut down Google Reader then put up a pointless map hack. Recognize that
putting this together took a bunch of people's time and energy, not to mention
processing power, server load, etc. All reasons for shutting down Reader.

What is the message Google is communicating to everyone? "We're still fun,
just less useful?" Sorry if I don't have room to appreciate their "corporate
whimsy" anymore.

~~~
branciforte3241
Reader was based on a very old Google platform that was no longer viable.
Porting Reader to the new infrastructure essencially meant rebuilding the
entire thing as a new project. The amount of work does not even compare to an
April Fools hack by the Maps team.

Can we please stop using everything that Google does as an excuse to complain
about Reader?

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TillE
Where are you getting that information?

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nightpool
Wasn't this from last year? I'm pretty sure I remember a similar programmatic
map transformation at least...

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midko
Last year was the 8-bit Quest world

google images search: <http://www.bit.ly/10qcvSy>

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matsiyatzy
nice easter egg : following the "treasure hunt" leads to red letters spelling
out "APRIL FOOLS".

Along each of the trails leading to the red letters, there are also hidden
letters that spell out "MMC-900913" (a reference to last years google maps
april fools)

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ch0wn
FYI: this does not work if you have MapGL enabled. You just see the normal
map.

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anonfunction
This is neat and a great example of encouraging "p2p" marketing.

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aj700
(Stomp Aberdeen.) Loch Ness. Monster on the map.

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benthere
look at this spot, or very, very close to it in satellite view - X Marks the
spot.

