Google is out and about capturing London for the latest addition to its Street View service. These 360 degree panoramic views are already available in most major US cities, but now Google is capturing everyone and everything on the streets of London.

If your’re planning a visit to one of London’s seedier establishments or are a generally dodgy person then you may want to watch the traffic. You could become part of the growing number of sites listing bizarre images captured using Street View.

Law-abiding citizens should rejoice as the capital becomes part of the Google data store, with images captured approximately every 10 meters throughout town. You can virtually explore city neighborhoods by viewing and navigating within 360-degree scenes of street-level imagery. Google puts it simply – ‘It feels as if you're walking down the street!’.

The site’s images are automatically captured as the Google car drives around town. It is especially useful if you’re new to the city or need to see what a location actually looks like. Combined with a GPS-enabled phone, it becomes the ultimate navigation tool.

Ahead of launch, various organisations are crying foul on the invasion of privacy. While faces will apparently be blurred out in the UK version to comply with privacy laws, it will be interesting to see if any complaints are made by residents taking offence that their house is viewable online.

As urban explorers both physical and virtual, we can’t wait. The only dilemma? What stupid pose to adopt if we see the Google car going past.

You can view a slightly bizarre video explaining Street View direct from Google.

By Andrew Hudson-Smith, image of a Google car from ollografik's Flickr photostream.