Microsoft announced a new feature to Bing Maps yesterday at the TED conference. Streetside Photos allows the users to see an image from a photo sharing site such as Flickr instead of the standard photo, and even includes historical photos in order to see how an area once looked. The feature that allows you to see photos in their full context is available in Seattle, San Francisco and Vancouver now, but there are plans to roll it out in additional cities.
This new functionality is being touted as augmented reality by some, because it allows you to quickly stitch one photo onto existing photos and has an accuracy of just a few inches. It even has the capacity to stitch a moving video on top of a map to create a lense-like effect.
“What we’ve really focused on in Bing Maps is making a continuum of experience that goes all the way from overview that’s more like a classic atlas or map down to an oblique view so that you can get an angle that is closer to the human experience, and you can pan around in more of a SimCity type of view. All the way down to the human scale where the map is effectively as big as reality itself, where it is meant to be experienced as you would walking, biking or driving.”
– Blaise Aguera y Arcas, architect, Bing Maps
View the following video to get a better sense of what Microsoft has planned to add augmented reality to their mapping interface.
