This company lets you listen to certain locations in 3D on Google Street View

Google Street View is awesome. You can visit everywhere from deep inside the Amazon jungle to the top of Mount Everest — experiencing the world’s foreign beauties on a rather attractive budget from the comfort of your office chair. Still, it’s missing a crucial ingredient that helps shape our experiences everyday: namely sound.

Using Google Street View’s API, hearing aid company Amplifon has added 3D sounds to popular virtual tourist attractions around the world.

Simply go to the website, put on a pair of headphones, and hear the bells chime at the Place du Palais in Monaco or the waves crashing on Hapuna Beach in Waimea, Hawaii.

As you “move” around the area, the sounds change accordingly. Move to the trees, and you’ll hear the birds chirp louder; move closer to the palace, and the bells go louder. It’s really awesome!

Amplifon explains the motivation behind this exciting project:

“[Hearing is] one of the most important human senses, which affects how we observe the world and how we interact, such as giving us an ultimate sense of direction or knowing when danger is upon us — Sound. Thousands of people every day experience the world digitally without this key sense, and it’s our wish at Amplifon to fill this void.”

The company hopes the amount of locations with 3D sounds to grow, and has thus made its API and a framework available. “The Sounds of Street View Framework gives developers with minimal coding experience, the opportunity to create bespoke street view soundscapes with ease,” Amplifon states.