Google Bot Selfies

July 4, 2014 9:12 AM

The Camera In The Mirror (Via sweetkid)
posted by the young rope-rider (10 comments total)

That thing looks WAY more like a Dalek than I had realized.
posted by 256 at 9:24 AM on July 4, 2014

I just ran across one of these for the first time last week (follow Grove Street, Edinburgh and it goes into what I think is an office building with a mirror in the entryway). Creeped me out to 'walk into a building', look to my left, and see a robot in the mirror.
posted by Mogur at 9:43 AM on July 4, 2014

Is this a google project I missed? Or a parody? Or an alternate universe encroaching on ours for a (hopefully) brief period of time? I'm not finding much searching for a google bot that takes pictures inside buildings.
posted by freyley at 10:02 AM on July 4, 2014

Google Street View's home page highlights a bunch of the available tours.
posted by Monsieur Caution at 10:11 AM on July 4, 2014

freyley, I've read that Google is sending their photobots into some museums and historical buildings. And sometimes there are mirrors.
posted by benito.strauss at 10:23 AM on July 4, 2014 [1 favorite]

Go to 123 Grove Street, Edinburgh, then look across the street. The opposite building is the one I found I could go into.
posted by Mogur at 11:51 AM on July 4, 2014

I wish I could see where these are. I'm especially curious about the, er, red room.
posted by potsmokinghippieoverlord at 12:59 PM on July 4, 2014 [1 favorite]

No mirror, but here's the googlebotted Acropolis Museum near my house (via Random Teleporter posted on Mefi), and here's a screenshot I took where you can see the shadow of the bot and operator.

(Here's an online app from the museum that lets you move between the third and first floor, and shows where you are on the floor plan.)
posted by taz at 12:04 AM on July 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

So no one knows where these are? The Italian interface and the look made me think Italy, in like a museum or something (the Vatican?).
posted by grobstein at 3:00 PM on July 5, 2014

No reason to think it's just one place I guess but there is a certain thematic unity.
posted by grobstein at 3:00 PM on July 5, 2014