Do you mean the 45 degree map view? I'd never heard of that myself, but apparently it's quite old: http://google-latlong.blogspot.co.uk/2010/07/changing-your-p...

If you mean something else, can you link to a screenshot?

I hope that's not the only thing they are announcing. Bing Maps has had this as "Bird's Eye" view for a while.

Compare http://binged.it/KOXqqh with http://goo.gl/maps/fC4r , they're identical but Google still has 2 zoom levels to go into details, while Bing is maxed out.

A formal announcement shouldn't be necessary for 2 zoom levels difference.

Today's announcement wasn't about that at all. It was about their use of new imagery gathered from planes (paid for and coordinated by Google) to generate detailed, textured, 3D models of cities.

See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMBJ2Hu0NLw#t=4296s

I know, that's what I was saying. They weren't going to have a whole announcement for something that is so trivial. (This was also posted before the announcement).

Well, I'm not sure what the threshold is for formal announcements - I too would like it if they mention the API opening up. But street view also looks significantly overhauled there.

The point is, they're not going to "announce" bird's-eye, they already have it. The announcement will be something else.

The 45° imagery for Zurich was announced one week ago.

http://google-latlong.blogspot.ch/2012/05/new-45-imagery-ava...

They have had the 45 degree view for a long time. You can spin it around too to view from different reference points (drag the N on the compass to see the other three available views or if you have WebGL just click the N).