Google Chrome Experiment Lets You Relive Your Teenage Angst in HTML5

I was urged this morning to have a look at Google's latest project: an HTML "movie," if you will, that combines direction from Chris Milk, music from the band Arcade Fire, and the street you grew up in an interactive, browser display that brings back memories of your childhood as if you were watching the scene of a movie.

Okay, so you don't necessarily have to enter the address at which you spent so many of your younger years in particular, but the concept certainly lends itself best to doing so. Visit www.chromeexperiments.com/arcadefire, enter the address, including city and province, wait for it to load, and hit "play movie." (You don't necessarily need to have the Google Chrome browser: I viewed it in Safari and it appears identically to how it does in Chrome.)

So at what exactly will you be looking? The video begins with what appears to be a teenage boy (but also possibly girl) running along the dark, damp streets at night, with his/her head covered by a comfortable grey hoodie. Is that a younger version of you? Why, yes, believe that it is. A new window opens in the top, left showing birds flying across the sky while the sun comes up. The angst-ridden song from Arcade Fire, "I Used to Wait," plays in the background with haunting lyrics like "our lives are changing fast," and "how we used to wait for letters to arrive," and discussions of the "wilderness downtown" (which is, as such, the name of the project.) Throughout the song, windows pop up in various sections of the screen, as if you're getting a bunch of annoying pop-up ads. Except they display varying parts of the scene: different camera angles of "you" running; a pan down the very street with which you spent so much time (compliments of Google Street View); a bird's eye view of the entire neighbourhood (a la Google Maps). The idea is, of course, to make it look as though the youth is revisiting your street..or, as opined above, that the youth is, in fact, you traveling down that street once again.

The end result isn't Hollywood-worthy by any means, but it also isn't trying to be. The idea is to demonstrate the power and evolution of the Web browser, including developments made possible through HTML 5 audio, video, animated windows, JavaScript controllers, and "mash-ups" with Google Maps and Street View. At the end of the "video", you also have the chance to try out a drawing tool.
I encourage you to check it out, just to see the potential of the Web, and the way that it may be utilized years from now. If for no other reason, it'll be neat to punch in your old address and take a 4-minute walk (or rather run) down memory lane.