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.
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.
