We just spoke with Luc Vincent after the event to learn a bit more about the backpack, and we discovered some pretty fascinating nuggets. For one, it took around a year to build, relying on a low-power computer with Android onboard and an application that does little more than "start and stop recording." It taps into 15 five-megapixel cameras up top, with all of the imagery being captured locally to a hard drive. From there, it's brought back to Google, stitched and analyzed, before being uploaded to the web.

It's also working to make the backpack smarter; it'll eventually analyze one's gait, and if it senses unusual vibrations, you'll be able to select the capture frequency to get higher-quality images. Also, it's absolutely not designed for indoor use -- "the images would be too blurry," Luc said. For now, Googlers will start out by testing the hardware, and once the kinks are worked out, Google may reach out to partners, or even rent them out. For instance, if a university wanted to map a new courtyard, they could rent one for a day and do just that. Pretty swank.

We also casually mentioned the idea of offering them in different colors, and Luc chuckled -- "We're thinking about that!"

Relive the memories in our liveblog... right here!