back to article Street View projects Woolworths through temporal portal

Here's a good one for those of you who might have considered the time-shifting capabilities of Google's Street View: An impressive example of how to project a Woolworths store through a temporal portal... The Woolworths branch on Street View, still open for business That's the Edgware Road branch of Woolies in London, seen …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    It's now a Waitrose

    Branch number 768 for all your branch number fact fans out there, opened on 26/11/08.

    It's the one with some good food, honestly priced, in the pocket....

  2. Waggers
    Dead Vulture

    unaware?

    "That's the Edgware Road branch of Woolies in London, seen in better days and evidently unaware of the terrible fate which awaits it." Looks pretty aware to me, given the huge "sale" posters and the covered-over windows.

  3. Roger Jenkins
    Unhappy

    Lebanese?

    Gosh, when I worked in a shop in Edgware Rd. back in 1965 it was all Jewish, whatever happened? Don't tell me that the Jewish butcher that did those magnificent salt beef sandwiches has gone and replaced by a kebab shop.

  4. Cloggy

    Time travel to changing carriage way!!

    Once you clicked on the shop front it looks initially that you can go back into the past.... but all you have to do is change to the other side of the road (dual carriage way).....

    Didn't know that changing to the other carriage way would make such a time difference! !!!!

  5. Rob
    Coat

    @Cloggy

    In some parts of London, crossing the road can take that long.

    Mine's the one with A-Z of timelines in the pocket

  6. Gareth.

    Gareth. says...

    If you look at the bottom of both pictures you can clearly see the portal that is obviously being used to transport between dimensions. I just hope they don't cause a shift in the time-space continuum (I've got no idea what that means, by the way, but Dr Who said it once and it sounded impressive).

  7. Joe 3
    Thumb Up

    Interesting

    Amid all the brouhaha surrounding Street View, one point I didn't see mentioned was that Google has created an amazing time capsule of our cities. Imagine if it had been possible 30 years ago? Wouldn't it be cool to be able to browse your town in 1979? No? Well, fine. But I like the idea. Either way, in 2039 Street View will be an amazing resource of how things were.

  8. TeeCee Gold badge
    Coat

    @Gareth

    Sssshhhh! You'll give the game away.

    The good Doctor's been getting away with walking into a situation and taking control through the simple expedient of baffling all those present with bullshit for several hundred years now.

    In your world: "Hello, I'm the Doctor. Looks like a shift in the time-space continuum to me.", would result in: "You bullshitting little wanker. Who let you in here? SECURITY!!!!!!" <keeerrrrrzap> and very short episodes, each ending in a regeneration.

  9. Icey

    @ Intersting

    That would be cool except that no doubt they'll have been made to delete all the out of date pictures by then :(

  10. David S

    Blast from the Past

    I used to work a couple of blocks down the road from there, towards Marble Arch. Second floor, just above the "Beirut Express" diner.

    I used to get a Starlight Express earworm every day en route to work.

    Ah, Woolies.

  11. Guy Herbert
    Pirate

    It's now a Waitrose

    Though surely the planning committee must be worried that it will affect the character of the area.

  12. Samantha Clinton
    Coat

    *drool*

    Mmmm...sorry Woolies, but personally I'd rather have a chicken shawarma than a bag of pick'n'mix ;)

    Mines the one with the greasy napkin in the pocket...

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Pint

    Locomotive Pub, Mill Road, Cambridge

    Same thing happened there. The pub got closed down a little while ago (long story...). In one shot, the pub is open; in the next shot up the street it's boarded up:

    http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&q=Mill+Rd,+Cambridge+CB1,+United+Kingdom&sll=53.800651,-4.064941&sspn=21.383044,35.419922&ie=UTF8&cd=2&geocode=FdZ7HAMdvioCAA&split=0&ll=52.200867,0.13514&spn=0.005392,0.008647&z=17&layer=c&cbll=52.200912,0.135025&panoid=h55FU8XgMMnPa3GMr7lxAg&cbp=12,173.8,,0,36.49

    OOooohh! New icons1!! SHINY SHINY!!! :-):-):-)

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Pint

    RE: Locomotive Pub, Mill Road, Cambridge

    Have you noticed the shop next door to it.

    They seem to have spelt Amnesty wrong...

    Or am i going mad?

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Linux

    RE: Locomotive Pub, Mill Road, Cambridge

    Across the road. From the picture of the pub boarded up.

    Is some people happy to see the opel :D

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    This is what streetview is really good for

    With all the controversy over street view, it seems the value of recording the look of our country through time is lost on the nay sayers.

    How interesting it would be to see the streets of London after the war in the 40s? Or be able to track the rise and fall of Woolworths by actually looking at their presence on the high street? Ill wager no one would be caring about blurring the faces of people as they go about their business in pubic.

    Yet so many people are ready to deny the the next generation this valuable information, just because they dont want their house to appear on a website with the bins out. (As Im sure no one cares about the picture of their house being on the internet on an estate agents...)

  17. Gerry
    Coat

    @Joe 3, @AC 19.23

    In effect you are describing project guttenberg for real life.

    I love watching old films catching glimpses of how London was (Rank films are good cheap sources and old BBC DVD collections) In the latter case now, apparently, they CGI montage bits of London for drama series so the location is "nowhere"

    sadly, my enjoyable moments include the very beginning of "The Eagle Has Landed" where the schloss is actually Somerset House and you can see a bit of it that has subsequently been wrapped in scaffolding seemingly permanently, Guinevere for views of London in the fifties, Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy, bits of west London, an extra in a Dr Who DVD showing the bits of London then (1964) and er, then (2002) for the filming of the Dalek invasion of Earth, a promotional video for the Jimi Hendrix Experience gives views of the South Bank in the sixties.

    It's OK, I'll stop now

    Mine's the one with a copy of Pevesner in the pocket

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    Giants Spotted

    The temporal shift is one thing but I am more concerned that just down the road a large vehicle of some kind has been unfortunately squished by a passing Giant yet no-one seems to be bothered.

    http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=W2+2DS&ie=UTF8&split=0&gl=uk&ei=An0_Sp-YDqaRjAekmqAG&t=h&layer=c&cbll=51.516938,-0.165624&panoid=053fBmxGZX5k7Wq-saJgyw&cbp=12,65.15,,0,19.92&ll=51.517002,-0.165707&spn=0.004553,0.010171&z=17&iwloc=A

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Alert

    More concerned about...

    ...that hole inthe time space continium that appears to have opend up in the lower right of the second picture...

  20. PT

    Talking of temporal shifts...

    What happened to the mountains behind Carnaby Street? I know they used to be there, I saw them in one of the Austin Powers movies where he time-travels back to 1969, but an extensive search of Street View failed to find even a small hill today. I can only imagine HM Government had them removed because they were blocking the surveillance cameras.

  21. Hairy
    Big Brother

    Soo out of date

    The Woolies was replaced by that other bastion of British retail Waitrose yonks ago, I wonder what the black Opel upgrade path is... Will they let us know in advance so we can all draw giant penisis on all the closed shopfronts????

  22. mittfh
    Alien

    Re: Locomotive Pub, Mill Road, Cambridge

    That bookshop is bizarre...

    Pub open: Books for amnesty

    One click: Books for amnesy

    Two clicks: Books for amnest

    Three clicks: Books for amnesty

    I'm sure it's got something to do with this temporal matrix thingy, and nothing whatsoever to do with their photo-stitching software...

    Aside: Surely they could have afforded to buy a decent package that does a proper job of stitching (unless the cameras need adjusting to allow greater overlap) and eliminates such undesirables as ghosting (mainly in the form of disembodied car bits).

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