We've mentioned the incorporation of Birds Eye view into Live Maps 3D before, but it's a little hard to describe without actually seeing it.  Looks live someone posted a video to YouTube though, that shows off the new technology.  Funny that YouTube user name just rings a bell somehow ;).

YouTube video on Live Maps 3D from Searchification

The area inside the boxes switch from being a 3D model representation of the view to an actual Birds Eye view photograph (more on why the boxes are necessary on the VE/Live Maps blog).  The Virtual Earth/Live Maps blog has some more on what's coming up:

The bits are finally aligned and in the hands of our ops team for deployment this week. I'll have full coverage here as soon as the release is publicly accessible, so check back in a few days for that. (...)

In 3D, the same challenges remain, but are easier to address with client side managed code. the result is a user interface that borrows concepts from MSR's Photosysnth to allow you to navigate more fluidly and naturally than what is possible with a javascript based client. its totally sick.

This new set of features (and an ability to save "flyovers" as a collection isn't shown here, among other things), along with the new 3D capabilities of the Virtual Earth SDK, should set up a major advancement for Virtual Earth and Live Maps 3D.

Thanks to Quikboy for the tip!  Saved us a few seconds of catching up on our RSS feeds :)