rootninja

Google Maps

We all know how Google Maps Streetview works. Zoom in all the way or drag & drop the little man onto a map and you get a street view picture. You can pan around and click in different directions to navigate.

Microsoft Streetview

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could move around without going from one still picture to another? That’s what Microsoft promises in their latest attempt to topple the king of all things search - Google.

Can they do it better than Goggle?

I hope one feeds the other and they both push the limits. Lofty goals for sure, but there’s definitely room for growth.

The technology behind creating the street slide view is pretty cool. There’s a pdf floating around showing how the images are stitched together. The panoramic slider has no fish-eye effect at all.

Microsoft is still pushing their silverlight plug-in that no one wants, but at least they’ve seen the light and included a link to view the video as a regular old WMV. (Look just below the giant silvercrap ad in plain text)

Once they drop the silverlight, I think Microsoft can expect widespread adoption. But perhaps Google is already working on real-time view.

Real-time view

As cool as streetview is and streetslide may be, wouldn’t real-time view at the street level be mind blowing?