The images look like a corner-cartoon, the kind you’d find in older “funny” books that showed a cowboy riding the range or a cat chasing a mouse. At about one image for every ten yards, the A9/Amazon block-view team are creeping through America, slowly capturing enough data to link photographic content with geographic search results. Looking for a coffee shop? You’ll get the address, a phone number, a website and a storefront photo. There’s no way you can get lost now …

For now, the hard work is in the actual collection of data. A recent Wired article followed the camera-van’s progress through Palo Alto, but you might be surprised by what cities have already been mapped (mostly).

Like Atlanta, for instance.

It’s kind of spooky, really. The images have a definite surveilance quality to them, particularly when you drill down to find places you lived. “Wow, there’s my front door … and my mailbox … the place where I did my laundry …

“… that groovy videostore next door …”

“… and my local bar.”

The photo mapping in Atlanta is rather extensive, reaching as far north as States Bridge Road and south to East Point. One hopes that they’ll come back to catch the rest of our suburban sprawl. While the interface is still a little clunky — and nowhere near as smooth-running as any Google Map — you could easily waste most of an hour just looking for your favorite locales.