Google Earth - free tool/toy

[mouser]

http://earth.google.com/

Google Earth – Explore, Search and Discover
Want to know more about a specific location? Dive right in -- Google Earth combines satellite imagery, maps and the power of Google Search to put the world’s geographic information at your fingertips.

   Fly from space to your neighborhood. Type in an address and zoom right in. 
   Search for schools, parks, restaurants, and hotels. Get driving directions.
   Tilt and rotate the view to see 3D terrain and buildings.
   Save and share your searches and favorites. Even add your own annotations. 
 

[nudone]

looks quite good to me. the 3D element certainly makes it nice to play with.

[mouser]

it's quite amazing really.

[zridling]

Hey, I think that's my cat crossing the street! Way cool.

[Edvard]

Think that's cool? Check out Google Moon to see their commemoration of the moon landing anniversary. Be sure to zoom all the way in, it's amazing!

[vegas]

ROFL, nice view., I think i'm hungry now.

[JeffK]

Yes, when can I sign up to go.

[Sentinel]

It makes my back office PC cry in ineptitude.  It seems you need a pretty darned good gaming PC to even run this stuff (GeForce 2 not good enough for ya Google?).  Having compared this to the Microsoft effort, it is definitely ahead on points, but both solutions need some further work, especially if you are outside of the United States.

[zridling]

Got a wife who's forcing me to move to the south of town (about 50 miles from here), so I used Google Earth to measure the distances from downtown St. Louis, to the Art Museum, to certain spots. In the worst case, I'm going to be 15 further miles from something, in the best case, I'll be 20 miles closer to my favorite Opera house.