Bing has unveiled some changes to Bing Maps today that give users a much better view of the street. The newly improved Streetside feature in Bing Maps doesn't just show you the street, but lets you pan up and down it with a seamless, panoramic view of the surrounding location.

In unveiling the update, Microsoft said, "In the past you explored Streetside imagery by navigating between 'bubbles,' or discrete 360 degree views, and moving down the street was accomplished by jumping from bubble to bubble."

Now the navigation through the map is smoother, and you can easily pan up and down the street. Above the street view is a map so you can keep track of where you are via the visual cues from the photography or via a more traditional map of streets and addresses.

This new feature is the result of technology developed by Microsoft Research's Street Slide project, which ReadWriteWeb's Marshall Kirkpatrick called "better than Google Street View" when he wrote about a video demo of the technology last year. For its part, Google has sent its Street View vehicle all over the world, raising numerous privacy concerns along the way. Bing Maps' Streetside isn't available everywhere yet, but if Microsoft wants to take on Google in this realm, it will have to make sure its mapping cars aren't too far behind.

Google will also try to avoid the same problems that have plagued Street View data collection in other countries, such as alleged privacy violations stemming from Wi-Fi hotspot mapping and identifying individuals.

Street View images of Bangalore are not available but will go live once Google has finished processing the data.

"We have got permission from Bangalore police, and are in touch with state and central governments," a Google spokeswomen told international news wire AFP. "We want to map all of the city, but anyone can complain if they are unhappy about coverage."

If India is anything like its European counterparts, there may be a couple mishaps. The United Kingdom challenged Street View, Germany had some problems but ultimately ruled it legal and France imposed a 100,00 euro fine on Google for collecting personal information.

Search Engine Land reports that the small town of Oberstaufen is the first to appear in Street View, with - as promised - many residences blurred out.

While the estimated 244,000 households that opted out represent only a fraction of the German population, the country has still been very critical of what it sees as an invasion of privacy by the Google Street View mapping process.

Now that the deadline has passed for Germans to opt out, Google plans to roll out Street View - blurs included to more cities by the end of the year.

If you're looking for some Antarctic real estate or some beachfront property on the Emerald Isle, Google Street View can now give you a glimpse of what you're getting into.

We often consider Street View to be the last zoom layer on the map, and a way to show you what a place looks like as if you were there in person--whether you're checking out a coffee shop across town or planning a vacation across the globe.

Much as Google Earth allows you to virtually explore the planet - from mountain tops to the ocean depths - Google Street View offers a ground-level peek at places in the world you might never otherwise see.

The service hasn't been without controversy, as many people (and countries) have petitioned to block the service or prevent it from showing identifying information.

We doubt, however, that the penguins will have a problem.

Germany's politicians have also seized upon this public opposition and held a high-level meeting in Berlin today to discuss potential regulations for geo-location services. The result of this discussion is that the German government will take a hands-off approach until the end of the year and allow the geo-location industry to self-regulate for now.

Now, this group of Attorneys General has grown to 38 (plus the District of Columbia). It has scheduled a Friday meeting with Google representatives and today it sent the company the latest in a long list of questions it wants answered.

Here is a partial list of the questions the group of Attorneys General want Google to answer.

• Did Google test the Street View information gathering technology prior to employing it?
• Who was responsible for the code that allowed the Street View cars to harvest private information?
• How could Google have been unaware of the presence of the code that allowed the cars to collect this data?
• How was this code uploaded to the cars?
• In which exact locations was private data collected?

"We will take all appropriate steps," said AG Blumenthal, "including potential legal action if warranted, to obtain complete, comprehensive answers."

Thanks to Simon Owens

The group "sent technicians with equipment similar to that used by Google to five members' homes depicted on Street View to see if there were open WiFi networks that Google could have tapped into and recorded communications." Apparently, they found that Representative Jane Harman of California - chair of the Intelligence Subcommittee of the Homeland Security Committee - was among a group of nearly 20 high level government officials whose home networks "could have been breached by Google."

John Simpson of Consumer Watchdog told the BBC that the group thinks "the Google Wi-Spy effort is one of the biggest wire tapping scandals in US history" and that its purpose "was to show that members of Congress are targets just as much as every other citizen in the land".

A better purpose, it would seem, would be to show that government officials entrusted with issues of national security are apparently broadcasting information out to the public over unencrypted networks - perhaps this merits an investigation.

Australian Federal Attorney-General Robert McClelland announced today that the Australian Federal Police are investigating Google for a possible breach of the country's telecommunications interception act.

• United States: Class action in the state of Oregon
• United States: Class action lawsuit in state of Massachusetts
• United States: Possible Federal Trade Commission investigation
• Germany: Criminal investigation
• France and Italy: Investigations
• Canada: Privacy commission investigation

Google CEO Eric Schmidt and co-founder Sergei Brin have both apologized, calling the over-collection a "screw up."

Google has also turned over the data it captured to the European investigators, to be examined in camera. It would be surprising if Australia were the last country to investigate. Google has had previous issues with privacy concerns.

Flag photo by Marragem
Car photo by Geograph

Using the Google Street View cars, Google explained it had intended to download what it called public information, such as MAC and SSID numbers. It has since pulled all of its Street View vehicles off the streets. But the mapping of Britain's routers has already been completed.

With 20,621 full-time employees, Google is a huge company and even something as small as its Maps section is itself vast. It has recently begun hiring 300 temporary workers to make fixes on its sometimes comically incorrect maps. Google has offered a pretty sincere-seeming apology for trapping the personal information.

But privacy is A-number-1 at getting people's skivvies in a bunch. No one is likely to forget this fiasco soon, but straightening out the decision-making process that apparently let someone signing off on the data collection - or at the very least didn't stop the collection from happening - would go a long way toward restoring faith in the company, and disincentivizing the litigiously inclined.

Here is how Google's Global Privacy Counsel, Peter Fleischer, laid out the company's use of the various types of information.

He pointed out, repeatedly, that TeleAtlas and Bing (as well as something called the Fraunhofer Institute, Skyhook* and NavTeq) harvest similar information. For those concerned with excessive gathering of invasive personal information, or aggregated information that can, with massaging, become invasive, I'm not sure the fact that others are doing it will be terribly comforting.

The major fear seems to be using technical data to link geographical data with personal locations. However the information Google pulls, including SSID (the network name) and the MAC address (device number) cannot currently be linked to human identifies without a great deal more effort than Google seems to be putting into it.

As with a lot of privacy thought, it is not so much what is going on now, or what a company, or other agency wants, but what would be possible in the future, given what is being done now.

*Didn't this thing start the Terminator wars?

Google is clearly working hard on highlighting local businesses across its properties. Google Maps already shows the names of local businesses once you zoom in close enough, and last week Google announced Google Places, a new version of its Local Business Center, which allows local retailers and restaurants to claim and update their own listings. In addition, Google is also taking pictures of the in and outside of local businesses around the U.S.

By using a rectangle that conforms to a building's geometry, Street View suddenly also feels a lot more three-dimensional than ever before. According to Google's announcement, Street View can do this thanks to using laser point clouds and by analyzing the differences between consecutive pictures.

Another cool new feature is the ability to go back to your starting point by simply clicking on the return arrow in the Address Box.

As is so often the case for this kind of product, the best way to get a feel for it is to simply head over to Google Maps and drag the little Street View guy to some interesting locations.

More 3D in Google Map's Future?

Given that Google is already surfacing some 3D data in Street View now, it is interesting to speculate what else the company could do with this data. Current 3D maps are often a bit clunky, but at this point, Google's Street View cars have covered an enormous amount of data, and by using a technique similar to Microsoft's PhotoSynth, Google could create an even more compelling 3D experience. Photosynth creates almost 3D-like representations of scenes by stitching together photos shot of the same object or landscape from different angles.