Google has just launched a new feature called “Street View” and the pic above is what it looks like. Yep, that’s Times Square. The little orange person in the center marks your position and point of view. You can pick it up to move it to a different location or you can click the arrows on the streets to move around. Try it out.

There are a lot of really nice touches in this. For instance you can pan around the scene just like a QTVR and zoom in and out. (The little orange guy even rotates when you do). Additionally, the yellow line in 7th Avenue above marks it as a 2 way street, while W 46th St in white marks it as one way.

So how does it work?

With a fancy orange van. As it drives down the street, images are captured by the cameras on the roof which are then stitched together with special software.

So if you see one of these driving around your city be sure to wave and smile vs. gawking. Otherwise you’ll end up looking like these two.