(quote from Digg.com)
Virtual Earth’s New feature allows you to take a rid on the seat of a car and drive around town….google watch it!
Well, hyperbole aside this is an interesting development, but I am not convinced it is going to be a major threat to Google Earth.
In a nutshell, you get the choice driving a car or walking around one of two street plans (I assume more are to follow soon) using the arrows on your keyboard to move. Now, it is interesting but it is a FAR CRY from virtual reality. I am on a fast-ish broadband connection and the lag between moves is shocking.
The other problem with this, and it is the same with Google Earth, is that the photos are immediately dated. It makes this like playing Grand Theft Auto (or similar) on a 286 with a mod to make it boring.
Google Earth and its clones were (and are) an interesting way to pass time idly looking at remote parts of the world. This is good for about 10 seconds.
When (if) the mapping and response times improve this could be brilliant. It would be great to have a driving sim as good as current flight sims – but we arent there yet.
Great piece. Should have just read it and not even tried to access site.
On 10MBit connection – nothing moves for half the time.and when it does it is boring. Pity