Google's 'Pac-Man View' Is No Prank

Users really can play arcade game on the world's streets
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Apr 1, 2015 4:38 AM CDT
Updated Apr 1, 2015 7:35 AM CDT

Google has long enjoyed April Fools' Day fun, but unlike Google Nose and Gmail Motion, the new Pac-Man Street View feature is not a prank—unless the joke is on people who've lost hours munching dots around the world. Desktop users of Google Maps can click an icon to turn the map they're looking at into the arcade game, as long as there are enough roads, reports the Christian Science Monitor. The options are a bit more limited on mobile devices, but Google's support page has a list of hints to uncover them.

Users have found ideal Pac-Man spots around the world, including the Taj Mahal and the University of Illinois, reports CNN, which notes that Google says the game "will only be around for a little while." In other April 1 Google news, the company blog introduces the Smartbox: a "better, smarter mailbox that fuses physical mail with everything you love about the electronic kind," with features including "smart folders" for real letters and electric shocks for people who try to deposit junk mail. It's "currently in field trial—stuck in the ground, in a field." (OK, Smartbox might be bogus, but here are 17 neat hacks Google can really do.)

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