Immersive City Navigation in Windows Local Live

Microsoft just released a Live Local technology preview that lets you drive around a city. They have forward, side, and rear imagery for all the streets in Seattle, and you can drive through the city using the arrow keys. The result is surprisingly fun and smooth--I just drove under highway overpasses, up a one-way street in the wrong direction, and found someone getting into their car. I haven't found any readable license plates or recognizable faces, so privacy seems intact so far.

I can't wait to see where this goes: I'd love to be able to drive through problematic intersections when I get directions. I am notorious for getting directions from the web but then getting lost when I panic at an unexpected or puzzling ("which of these four paths is `keep left'?") intersection, turn the wrong way, find myself in a maze of curving one-way streets that disorient me until I finally drive into the sea and wake in an emergency room with seaweed breath and a lingering wish that I'd bought the full coverage insurance. Being able to see intersections and the things I should see as I drive the route will definitely help me. Until it's integrated with directions, it'll be fun but not useful (like A9's original BlockView). The conference planner in me crosses his fingers and wishes they could release that at Where 2.0 (not least so I wouldn't get lost driving to the conference hotel).

This is the first "oooh, nifty!" moment I've had from Live since the Virtual Earth pictometry was demoed. It's great to see Microsoft doing cool things again. Oh, and browser monopoly conspiracy theorists take note: it worked fine in Firefox on my Mac.