A9's Blockview Mapping

A9 (the search engine owned by Amazon) has a fully enabled Beta Website preview of their new Blockview mapping program. This website allows you to view high detailed pictures of street-level view of selected addresses. They drive around certain cities (see below) with a gps device and 2 digital cameras then plot the corresponding images with the street address...Thereby allowing you to see your destination before arriving. Great tool for researching locations, coffee shops, resturaunts, clubs, etc

Here is the LINK

The most powerful technology A9.com invented for Yellow Pages is "Block View," which brings the Yellow Pages to life by showing a street view of millions of businesses and their surroundings.

Using trucks equipped with digital cameras, global positioning system (GPS) receivers, and proprietary software and hardware, A9.com drove tens of thousands of miles capturing images and matching them with businesses and the way they look from the street.

The whole process (except for the driving!) is completely automatic, making it fast and efficient. Block View allows users to see storefronts and virtually walk up and down the streets of currently more than 10 U.S. cities using over 26 million photographs. We are driving and at some point hope to cover the whole country.

Current List of Cities Having Block View Images

The current list of cities and their surrounding areas include:

• Washington DC
• Phoenix
• Miami
• Houston
• Fargo
• Atlanta
• Boston
• Dallas
• Chicago
• New York City (Manhattan)
• Denver
• Los Angeles
• Seattle
• Portland, Oregon
• San Francisco and the Bay Area

Coverage of Manhattan – partial map (driving over the bridges was not exactly intentional). Here's one of our trucks covering Manhattan.