A Road View body reveals a boxy white home in Porto, Portugal, with a terracotta roof, modest inexperienced garden and lengthy grey driveway stretching down its aspect. A determine will be seen on the driveway’s finish, left knee on the cement and fingers busy behind a small wheelbarrow, barely blurred as if painted in watercolor.
For a lot of, it will be an unremarkable picture, however for Google software program engineer André Santos it’s a treasure — one which may have stayed buried if not for a mixture of destiny, expertise and curiosity.
In early 2023, André’s dad and mom put in photo voltaic panels, and when the federal government introduced €30 million value of grants for individuals who had taken steps to make their houses extra power environment friendly, he determined to use on their behalf. He simply wanted photographic proof the work passed off after Could 2022. “Getting the after picture can be simple sufficient,” André says. “However we didn’t have any previous pictures that clearly confirmed the surface of the home earlier than.”
Recalling his time exploring neighborhoods he was contemplating transferring into on Google Maps, an concept struck. “I remembered you would click on on snapshots of previous Road View pictures of an space,” André says. He took his laptop computer to his dad and mom’ home and typed their deal with into Maps. The newest picture, from April 2023, already captured the photo voltaic panels on the roof, so he chosen “see extra dates” and located an image taken in July 2022. Voila: no panels.
His dad and mom, impressed by the characteristic, requested to see a before-and-after of a latest home renovation. André went additional, clicking on the oldest obtainable Road View picture of the deal with from September 2009. Because it loaded, his dad and mom stopped speaking; André, too, fell quiet. The trio’s eyes have been drawn to that hazy determine behind the driveway. “It was my grandfather, Joaquim,” André says. “He’d handed away a 12 months earlier than.” André’s mother, who was particularly near her father-in-law, softly broke the silence: “I miss him.”
