Google hits the streets

5/31/07 update below

Google Maps has launched a new Street View feature that allows you to "walk through and look around" as if you were standing at a given street location.

Real estate agencies used to charge a lot of money for stuff like this. I just want to know when Google is planning to start paying my mortgage.

UPDATE: My friend Ruth is concerned about the incidental immodesty (in particular concerning expectations of female modesty) that may result from people having their photograph taken incognito as data is gathered for this effort. My response:

Back home, middle-aged mothers sitting on their porch, legs up on the veranda, fanning themselves with a dog-eared (day-old) copy of "TeVe Guia" is considered not just not inmodest but downright colorful in a folklorish sort of way.

Of course the one-way-mirrored black van with the satellite transmitter on the roof and the multi-colored "You've been GOOGLED!!!!" text on the side would be a relatively new development in the neighborhoods of mi viejo San Juan.

HTC X7500

Everybody is reporting on this thing today. Pretty good, but the more things like it that come out the more obvious it becomes that "ultra-portable computers" are going through.... what is the opposite of growing pains? Shrinking pangs? It's too small to be as useful as a laptop and too big to be as portable as a PDA phone

(and this one doesn't even run the full version of Windows as the very neat OQO 2 does)

How about a form factor design that allows the screen to fold in half (on a hinge that will minimize the "join" when open) as well as the keyboard, so when closed it is one-fourth the area of the opened device?

It has been proven that people will buy a PDA phone that is MUCH larger than a just-a-phone because then they don't have to carry two devices. If we take that as a size goal (~ 6" x 3" x 1" when closed) the above design, when opened, would result in a mini-laptop computer with a screen area of 6"x6" and a keyboard that is 12"x3" (or 12"x6" if it can be made thin enough for an extra fold). The folding would be arranged in such a way that one of the two screen panels would face outwards when closed and then function as a traditional PDA.

I'm telling you, there's gold here.