Amazon.com's A9 search subsidiary has combined photographs and maps in a new search service launched in beta earlier this week, offering users street-level photos of addresses and driving directions for some two dozen U.S. cities, CNET writes. The A9.com Maps service integrates interactive maps with photos of both sides of streets. The 35 million pics taken so far are also used in Amazon's Yellow Pages search, with photos of businesses showing up alongside addresses and phone numbers.

Amazon, Google, Yahoo and MSN are in a battle to provide the best maps and location-based search tools. Last month, MSN launched its Virtual Earth beta, and Google released a "hybrid" site offering aerial views superimposed on road maps.

The new A9 service provides driving directions when users click on start and end points on the map, and it shows photos of locations corresponding to points on the map clicked with the cursor. Instead of typing in addresses, people can click on a map - and the corresponding address will pop up.