Now you can click on a street in Google Maps and you’re virtually there. Street View, a limited feature that could be called experimental because of the paucity of cities available, was just rolled out by Google a few hours ago. But that lack of imagery doesn’t make this any less cool. Click the Street View button on the top, select one of the camera icons then you can do a virtual walk around that city.
It doesn’t give you that virtual race car that you get with Microsoft’s Live Search Maps, but you do have the ability to get a full 360-degree view of wherever you’re standing, and then you can zoom in on any point within that view. It’s also great to go full screen, and it almost feels like you’re there. What’s the catch? Take the jump to find out, and to see a video showing the new features.
There are only parts of five cities (San Francisco, New York, Denver, Las Vegas and Miami) that have imagery available. Now as soon as they can gather imagery for the entire world, this will be an indispensable tool. Imagine if someone crammed all that data into a GPS system. Keep in mind, though, a database is only as powerful as the information within.
Google Maps [Google] Thanks, Matt!
