A new web service offers an unusual way to travel around the planet without leaving your computer. World Watcher collects public broadcasts from cameras around the world onto one interactive map and allows you to instantly switch between them.
When opening the site, the user sees a map strewn with markers of available cameras. At the time of publication, there are 608 of them. Clicking on any tag immediately launches a live broadcast from YouTube, showing what is happening at that point right now.
The most interesting function of the service is hidden behind the “Explore” button. Instead of independently selecting a point on the map, the site selects a random location, turning the entire planet into an endless feed of live broadcasts.
One click can take you to a quiet beach, the next – to a metropolis thousands of kilometers away. For those who need a specific type of broadcast, filters by category are provided:
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airports, ports and railways
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beaches, nature and urban areas
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business locations, religious places and sports facilities
Separately, you can filter out broadcasts with sound, which significantly changes the feeling of presence. The live sound of the surf or the hum of a train station works better than any static picture.
A Japanese developer has made an interactive map of 1,383 live cameras on the Japanese islands
The idea for the service was born out of irritation with existing maps with cameras. Such sites typically take the user to third-party pages when selecting a stream, while World Watcher keeps the map and stream together without opening new tabs.
Unlike static photographs or Street View images, which capture a location as it is taken, this captures a real moment in time. The difference between an archive and a live broadcast turns ordinary map viewing into a kind of virtual tourism.
