Two weeks ago, Google announced that its Maps application now featured street-level imagery of New York, Washington, Dallas and San Francisco. The images, using technology from Immersive Media Corporation, let users travel virtually down the street and look in every direction. Essentially, you can pan, rotate and zoom the camera just by using your mouse. There's a demo and instructions here.

But mapping isn't all that Immersive Media's technology is good for. The company's Web site shows applications for first responders (try clicking on the picture above), oil and gas exploration, tourism, film location scouting and sports broadcasting. The potential applications seem limitless. The demos on Immersive Media's site are videos, unlike the static photos on Google Maps. You can actually change the perspective of the video -- so that you're looking out the back of a car, for example, while you're driving down the street -- and you can stop the video to get a better view and look around some more.