Amazon's A9 Search: "Virtual Walk" Feature (COOL!!)

[dotnina]

Okay, this is seriously cool!!!

http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/internet/01/27/amazon.a9.reut/index.html

SAN FRANCISCO, California (Reuters) -- Amazon.com Inc. launched a local Internet search service on Wednesday that allows users to virtually walk streets and see photos of businesses, a move that could help it better compete with established search providers such as Google Inc.

...

A9's so-called block view allows users to see storefronts and virtually stroll the streets of 10 cities, including New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, where the company has collected more than 20 million photographs.

Okay, this is majorly cool. Not only do they have a picture of the storefront, they have a bunch of ordered pictures of the whole entire street, as if you are literally walking on foot. I'm totally in awe at this.

Example of how it works: http://a9.com/optical?a=oyp

 

[Lloyd1994]

Example of how it works: http://a9.com/optical?a=oyp

Hey, that's only a few blocks from where I work. Wierd to see everyday sights on a website, or maybe its just me. Some co-workers and I were playing with a9.com earlier today and it is, indeed, awesome. However, the controls limit you to "walking" left and right down a street and the desire to "walk" forward and back grows with every click. They must have JUST taken the pictures because I recognize some vacant offices that weren't vacant a few months ago. I looked for a date on a bank sign or a list of movies at a theater, but couldn't find any. Its fun to look at some of the people on the street, too

 

[Chaszmyr]

I expected A9 to be good from the start, I'm glad they are proving me right!

 

[blackfox]

Da**it!
Six or seven years ago, I had this idea (well, a similar one) where I would take full-motion video and stitch it together using Flash, but I could never get the time or the capital for the venture...looks like the future is passing me by...

Really cool stuff, however, despite my personal sadness.

BTW, lloyd1994, evidently we're neighbors. I call Portland home also, in fact I get coffee at one of the stores pictured...greetings to you.

 

[jdechko]

Thats really cool, especially since one of the options is to do a virtual walk across 75/85 at Georgia Tech! In reality it's not that fun of a walk (mainly the smog and the fact that you're walking over a busy intersection) but its cool to see it virtually and to say that I have actually been there

 

[Chaszmyr]

BTW, lloyd1994, evidently we're neighbors. I call Portland home also, in fact I get coffee at one of the stores pictured...greetings to you.

Sorry to tell you, but it's displaying your home city... The URL wasn't set to any location in particular

 

[blackfox]

Sorry to tell you, but it's displaying your home city... The URL wasn't set to any location in particular

Yeah, I thought that, but Oregon isn't that populated of a state. I was taking an educated guess. Guess I did sound overly assumptive.

 

[Don't panic]

cool.

OK. here is the new game:
Who's the first one to find him/herself or someone they know on the pictures?

 

[wdlove]

That is really cool dotnina. I hope that it will become a success. Probably Google will follow along at some point. This will be very helpful to me, I'm one of those that travel by visual images rather than road street sign.