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that Google are adding "immersive" views to their maps. Now as well as seeing what a location looks like from above you can stand at street level and get a 360 view of the location. You can . The service is currently only available in a few locations, but it's an exciting development.

It seems to me reading this report about , much of the raw material for these kind of maps may also exist. Interesting possibilities open up when you think about how this data could be used and enhanced particularly in a business context.

UPDATE: I suppose this effectively counts as a second-thought. Internet users have been pointing to odd things caught by the new "street level" system. One very popular link is described there and elsewhere as someone leaving a strip club. I won't link because there is in fact no evidence that the man was leaving the club, he was photographed outside the club, that's all, he might just have chosen an unfortunate time/place to park his car. But it highlights some of the risks with how people may use this technology, this man, whether he visited the club or not, has had his imaged plastered around the internet with the description "man leaving a strip club." Now this is a problem with the interpretation of the technology rather than the tech itself - but it highlights the dilemma. On the one hand a really cool, draw dropping in fact, application that's great fun to use, and evidently useful too, but on the other hand as this case illustrates there must be some privacy concerns.