Google Maps has been progressing quite a lot, and the service’s developers have been experimenting with various special additions lately. A while back, they introduced “street view” to underwater locations, allowing users to go beneath the surface of the ocean and explore the seabed, at least in some places. And now, thanks to a recent update to Google Maps, people can actually take a tour of Mount Everest!
Admittedly, the location hasn’t been implemented fully, as it’s not (yet) possible to actually reach the top. However, users can still look around in a quite extensively designed setting and explore what Everest actually looks like from up close.
According to Google, this has been made possible thanks to their partnership with Ava Sherpa, a climber from Nepal who has managed to get to the top of Everest a total of 21 times, and has been of great help to Google with his activities. Story Cycle have also been involved in the project.
The location has been mapped in a lot of detail, despite giving no access to the top. It’s possible to go around the various monasteries and schools, check out the “yak parking lot” as it’s called, and view the various landmarks that everyone should be able to recognize if they’ve been to Everest before.
“Virtual Tourism” is an emerging concept that has been gaining popularity fast, and it’s clear that it will have lots of serious implications on the future of tourism as a whole. However, some have been worried that those implications might not be entirely positive. According to some, there could be a problem if one day everyone can go on a trip around the world with a pair of VR goggles and a computer. Some countries actually rely on their tourism quite a lot to survive, so this could have actual implications on the global economy.
Still, we’ll probably find a way to go around those issues, and on the other hand, virtual tourism can be of great benefit for many people, especially kids at school who will have an unprecedented opportunity to explore the locations they’re learning about in detail, as if they were there. On the other hand, this could carry over to other subjects, like history and biology.
But on the topic of Google Maps, many are hopeful about the service’s development and progress, because it’s likely going to be at the front line of those new trends once they start gaining ground. A lot of people are already using Google Maps to explore the world in their free time, and Google have been responding accordingly by keeping the service always up to date and packed full of interesting things to discover.