Did you try the Google Maps 8 Bit yet?

It is April's Fool time and Google released an original update for the occasion: an 8-bit version of oneof their famous feature, Google Maps. You can access this map by going to Google Maps and clicking on the 'try it now' link on the left of your page. You will then be redirected to a fully-functional 8-bit version of Google Maps. You can zoom in on your house or get directions for your next road trip. This new feature is humorously advertised a 'Google Maps on your NES' as a reference to the old 8-bit gaming system. Looking at the world in 8-bit is fun: familiar landscapes look like a map straight out of an old RPG.

This project is fun and original, and yet I cannot help feeling something disturbingly close to nostalgia. I miss 8-bit graphics, dial-up internet, black and white cell phone screens and game boys. Technology is evolving so fast we quickly forget about the products we desperately wanted and cherished because they are ridiculously out-dated only five years later.

Sometimes I wonder if I will sit down with my grandchildren and tell them what it was like to play video games on a 2D TV or how we had to use cords to go on the internet – and above all, I wonder if they will believe me.

New technologies are evolving so fast but we are still human beings and live slowly. Did we create a world too fast for us? I think 8-bit designs making me feel nostalgic is a problem: I belong to a generation known as the Millenniums and most of my memories are linked to products of a consumerist society.