The Earth is Closer: Street Views in Google Maps

Google Maps launched a new way to explore our geography: at the street level. In a limited number of locations, you'll find a button that says "Street View". Once you click on that button, watch the street marked with blue lines and click on one of them to see a street view for that location. To navigate along the street, click on the white arrows or use the arrow keys. You can also rotate the image and see a complete a panoramic view.

The feature is available only for Denver, Las Vegas, Miami, New York City, and the San Francisco Bay Area, but it will be extended as soon as Google has more street-level imagery.




And here's a short demo from Google:



Philipp Lenssen from Google Blogoscoped thinks "this looks & feels amazing, albeit there's potential privacy issues due to the level of detail (you can make out individual faces, license plates and so on)". Now all we need is some real sound and a way to integrate information about different places.