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Design

Take a World Tour

Teleport across the globe. Virtually…

Want to be explore the world with the click of a button? Well, you won’t have to wait for science to provide us with teleportation. That could be icky, and you never know whether your DNA is exactly the same as before you went. Much better to just have a go on Globe Genie, created by Joe McMichael, a first-year grad student at MIT’s Research Laboratory of Electronics. It’s simple to use. You just select the continents you want to randomly end up viewing, click shuffle and off you go. It will virtually transport you there using Google Street View. BAM! You’re in Dudley, England, UK. Click! You’re in Hope Valley, Rhode Island, United States. Click! Your’e in Middelburg, Mpumalanga, South Africa. Click! You’re in Axedale, Victoria, Australia. Click! You’re in Saint-Chaptes, Gard, France. And so on. If you missed out on a holiday this year, then this might help; if you get creative and project the images onto the windows of your apartment. Even if it's no match for really getting outside your comfort zone, it’s certainly a novel way to see the world.

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According to the Guardian, its inventor explained how it works thus: “Globe Genie generates random latitude and longitude coordinates within several pre-specified rectangles around regions that have Street View imagery. It then queries Google’s servers to determine whether the point is valid. If not, it repeats this process until it finds a valid location.”

[via Guardian]