Arcade Fire uses HTML5, Google Maps to create Internet's first interactive music video
Wednesday, September 1, 2010 at 02:44PM 
Arcade Fire have released the first HTML 5 powered music video on the internet.
It uses the band's song We Used to Wait and asks the user for their childhood address to pull in shots of the street and aerial views of the neighbourhood.
The experiment, called The Wilderness Downtown, uses multiple video windows to create a tailormade trip down memory lane.
The animated flashbacks are synchronised with the music, and with core shots of a person running down a road and flocking birds.
Director and artist Chris Milk collaborated on the project.
The American has previously worked with the likes of Kanye West, Green Day and Gnarls Barkley.
During the video, the user also gets the chance to write a note to their childhood self in a special tree-like scrawl.
'Unique experiences'
Google Maps and Street View technology are the sources for the location data and it's all designed to show off their Chrome web browser.
The website for the project boasts of its use of "custom rendered maps, real-time compositing, procedural drawing (and) 3D canvas rendering."
HTML 5 is still under development but the programming language is set to become the next standard for building the web.
"Browsers and web technologies have advanced so rapidly in the last few years", says Aaron Koblin from Google Creative Lab.
"Powerful experiences tailored to each unique person in real-time are now a reality," he explains on the company's official blog.
We Used to Wait - the song used in the video - appears on Arcade Fire's latest album, The Suburbs.
The Canadian band are number four in the chart with the critically acclaimed record and have just headlined the Reading and Leeds festivals.
From BBC News
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