Google Street View Now Has a 'Time Machine' Feature

You can now use Google Street Viewto explore locations all over the world, including some of the top zoos, national parks and even the ocean floor.

With Google's latest upgrade to Street View, users can travel back in time to see how specific locations have changed. Street View product manager Vinay Shet calls it a "digital time capsule of the world."

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Google has collected images from its past street view collections -- going back as far as 2007 -- to create interactive timelines.

"This new feature can also serve as a digital timeline of recent history, like the reconstruction after the devastating 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Onagawa, Japan," wrote Shet in a blog post. "You can even experience different seasons and see what it would be like to cruise Italian roadways in both summer and winter."

With Google's new Street View feature, you can watch buildings and monuments being constructed, like the Freedom Tower in New York. Credit: Google

Street View locations with time-lapse photos available will show a clock icon on the upper left corner. Selecting the clock icon brings up a slider to navigate between images from previous years and seasons.

The new feature, which is currently only available on the desktop version of Google Maps, rolls out on Wednesday, though it make some time before the feature is available to everyone.