And last but not least, Street View coverage has expanded in 15 of our current areas: Boise, Boston, Kansas City, Miami, Nashville, New York City, Orlando, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Portland, Richmond, San Diego, San Francisco, Tampa, and Tucson.
We've also been spending the past year working very hard to improve Street View image quality. In this push, we removed some of our oldest images, so say goodbye to odd coloring and funky geometric artifacts. The new images have better color and more consistent lighting.
Now you can look up in all our images. But what goes up must come down, so with this release you can also look down as well. The roof of our car and the 'black hole' really aren't all that interesting -- now when you pan down the car is magically gone and you can see straight to the ground in most of our images!
And finally, in the spirit of getting better with age, the face blurring technology we began testing in Manhattan has been deployed for all of our imagery. Remember that all these new Street View images are simultaneously available in Google Earth and through Google Maps API.
So, the next time you find yourself looking for books in Cambridge, MA, paneer near London, tourist attractions in Brazil, schools in Nairobi, or Elvis in Memphis, be sure to Google Map it for an overview of reviews and images. Once you narrow down your choice to one or two options, there's still the "more info" link which takes you to an info-window with more reviews, more images, related webpages, and basic information about the business, including hours, pricing, and the official website. So go ahead and local search your hearts away!
This version of Google Maps for mobile also includes a bunch of other goodies, like faster searching on BlackBerry devices and star ratings for businesses. It's currently available for BlackBerry devices and many other Java-based phones. To download it to your phone visit http://www.google.com/gmm from your phone's web browser or on the desktop.
We're working to bring public transit directions to Google Maps on other devices, so stay tuned!
When you mouse over an image, you'll see polygonal frames appear. Each of these frames represents a photo of the same location taken from a different angle or perspective. Just click on the frame to view that photo, and continue exploring. You can also click the thumbnails on the right-hand panel.
Follow the "Look around" link from this photo of Notre Dame in Paris or St Basil's Cathedral in Moscow to see them from all different angles. Take a look at these beautiful photos of the Astrological Clock in Prague.
We're experimenting with this new feature, so you won't find the "look around" link for all of the over 5 million photos shared in Panoramio. For now you'll find it primarily on photos of popular tourist attractions, but, as with our other tools and services, we plan to keep tinkering with it, so keep an eye out for new developments.
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