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Forget Street Views, Google Maps Adds Webcams

Webcams are everywhere. Many are in public places, such as Times Square, or the Akihabara district in Tokyo. They are often used for weather or traffic observation (OK, and maybe people watching, too). Now, you can enable a layer of webcams within Google Maps.

When in Google Maps, simple click on the "more" options and select "Webcams." Once you do, you'll be able to see a street-level or birds-eye view of whatever it is you're looking at.

The feature was made available by a partnership Google struck with Webcams.travel, which is an aggregator that has over 9,000 webcams catalogued all over the world.

When first enabled, you'll see a thumbnail image within Maps. According to Webcams.travel blog, the thumbnail will be a snapshot taken from that particular webcam in the last 15 minutes.

If you want to see the live feed from that webcam, you have to double-click on it.

In practice, I found the feature really slowed down the performance of Google Maps. Even so, it's a neat tool that gives you a slightly more interested look at the local scene of where you plan to go.

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