[my home location in Seattle, courtesy of Streetside view]
The Bing team flipped Streetside view on today and it brings a whole new perspective to navigating maps. Previously, in Google Maps and Bing Maps, you’d “walk down the street” and the experience was pretty good – albeit you were jumping from one bubble of imagery to the next so it never quite felt seamless. With Streetside view, you “strafe” down the street – moving from left to right as if you were looking at a row of buildings from a passing car or stood on the opposite side of the road. What’s more, you get an overlay of business listings, street names and store fronts, bus routes and such in an augmented reality type fashion shown above.
Try it out on a New York street (hit the zoom out button once for a better experience). If you want to see what is across the street, hit the U turn button or if you want to navigate down a street, click on its blue label.
Sometimes we get dinged with the “what’s has Microsoft Research done for you lately?” question. This is another fine example of technology transfer from MSR – this time from the Interactive Visual Media group.
Find out more from the Bing blog
