The Internet Figured out Time Travel

The Internet figured out time travel Wednesday, so get stoked: it's accessible from any web browser. Google Street View just rolled out a new feature most people creeping around on Google Maps have been wanting for some time: Can we get a look at what this street looked like the last time Google drove by? Well, now you can.

Starting soon — the feature isn't live for everybody yet — you'll be able to click on a clock icon in the upper left-hand corner of Google Street View to go back in time. A slider will appear and let you sort through a number of pictures showing how the street's changed over the years. Which means when you're older, you can scroll on back through Street View and check out the street you grew up on and exactly how it looked back in the day. This will be, at the very least, a boon to descriptive biographers. It's not being rolled out for mobile devices.

The new feature also captures screen grabs of streets in different seasons, which likely means people house-shopping on Google Maps won't be making the move to Chicago any time soon. Using the new tool, you can see how weather affects the look of a monument; watch buildings rise and fall; and see streets paved and developed as time goes by.

Here are a few of the cooler before-and-after images provided by Google and published by Re/code.

Cherry blossoms in bloom along a street in Kyoto, Japan:

What the Eiffel Tower would've looked like, if you didn't decide to visit in December:

Watch the Freedom Tower at One World Trade Center go up:

Check out how seasons change the streetscape in Brooklyn:

And watch buildings fall after the devastating 2011 earthquake in Japan:

The feature is one of the best new time-wasters we've seen the trusty Internet unveil in years.

Images: Google Maps