Developers at Amplifon, an Italian company that makes hearings aids, have taken one more step toward complete independence from ever having to leave your house with Sounds Of Street View, an application that allows Google Street View users to hear what faraway places sound like instead of just being able to see them like a sucker. Dubbed by the company as an “exploratory digital sound experience,” the application overlays several of Google Street View’s panoramic photographs with ambient noises that get louder or softer depending on how far away the user is standing. The ambient noises are all short, looping clips that repeat themselves if you stand in one place for too long, so the application is unlikely to confuse anyone into wondering which world is real and which is just a waking dream. Still, anything that lets you hear the ocean gently lapping onto the sands of a Hawaiian beach without having to spend the money to actually go there can’t be all bad.
As of right now, the website for Sounds of Street View lets users explore and hear sounds recorded at the Place Du Palais in Avignon, France; Hapuna Beach, Hawaii; and Balboa Park, San Diego, California. The code is available at Github, so tech-savvy types are free to add their own sound mixes to any place Google’s camera-mounted cars have traveled. Someone will probably add the sounds of an Avengers-style alien invasion to panoramic shots of Manhattan any day now.
[via The Verge]