Microsoft seems to have pulled their pants up on this one, take a look at this video showing Street Slide which is a new research project by Microsoft that looks to top Google Street View.

The multi-perspective street slide panorama view  looks like a great addition compared to bubble hopping that takes place at the moment. A very nice way to zoom up and down one side of a street.

Should we get our hopes up?

Unfortunately I will have to spoil everything and say that this will not be available in South Africa for some time. By the time it reaches  Johannesburg, Google will already have something better in place. Once again Microsoft has taken to only providing the service to top major USA cities. Bing street level maps is currently only available in these big cities, we still have to wait around for Microsoft to  first visit our streets and later introduce Street Slide. If their implementation speed is anything like their indexing speed then Google will already be mapping the streets on the moon before Microsoft even arrives in SA.