Doing the Electronic Street Slide

Slide over, Google Maps. There's a new kid in town.

Microsoft's Street Slide combines Google's Street View style virtual wandering with a blocks wide, side-scrolling long view. You can even sort of see down the side streets. It's actually very cool, and the interface seems much easier to use than Street View. Take a look at the video, it's easier to understand if you see it in action.

It looks like it is still contained in Microsoft Labs and if/when it escapes it will have the obvious limits on coverage as it builds the image libraries. If the interface is anywhere as slick as the video - always a good question - it looks to be a promising option for checking out new cities.