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We all love satellite maps in our browsers, but now it's getting really exciting: bird's eye views, available now for parts of the UK, brought to you by Microsoft Virtual Earth. Let's have a look: aerial view, bird's eye view. Or: aerial view, bird's eye view. Or: aerial view, bird's eye view. Bright, crisp and clear. This rocks hard, indeed:

I just made a bird's eye view tour along River Thames, and within minutes, it gave me a much better impression of the region than any other visual medium could do. In those few minutes I also found more interesting photo spots than hours of evaluating standard aerial photos or probably days of evaluating maps would return. It is a safe bet that such data, once it becomes available for larger areas, will fundamentally change the way we choose travel destinations and homes. Obviously, it opens up whole new opportunities for urban and industrial explorers, too.

Also in the recent update: decent satellite images of the entire United Kingdom in your browser - finally. Google Maps doesn't have them, Microsoft Virtual Earth does. Examples: Port Talbot Integrated Steel Works (quite a beauty), Scunthorpe Integrated Steel Works, Redcar Steel Works and Rolling Mills, Redcar Blast Furnace and Coke Plant, Redcar Chemicals. Nice.

Notes: When zooming in, the satellite photo quality seems to get worse and worse - keep on zooming in. Once zoomed in far enough, the high quality photos will be displayed. The zoom slider does not work well in my Firefox. The +/- buttons do, though, and nicely enough, double clicking zooms in, too.

Technorati Tags: maps, mapping, geobrowsing, geospatial, microsoftlive+local, virtual+earth, google+maps