Microsoft’s new maps are stunning

Yes saw it a few days back its really amazing the resolution of the images. What more it looks like live.com has become very scalable and the latency for downloading images has become very small. Even their search is getting better so is their soapbox player now integrated into msnbc video.

One thing I really like is the ads Microsoft is displaying is not intrusive. They are no longer using banner ads in maps and thats very positive. I think they are getting several web 2.0 stuff right. They still have work to do especially with integration between applications. Looks like Ray Ozzie is making an impact as we expected with Microsoft's web strategy.

Robert...your house link just brings up the map home (start) page. Is this just a Mac thing?

It seems to work here on my Mac, but I have no idea. They make it freaking impossible to permalink to these things.

Just do a search for "Pinehurst Lane, Half Moon Bay, CA" and you'll fin it.

Hmmmm...Works in Firefox. In Safari it just redirects to http://intl.local.live.com/ with the two search boxes.

I don't know...I always get a sick feeling in my stomach about these maps. How convenient they are for kidnappers, home invaders, stalkers, robbers, rapists, terrorists...

Most rapes and stalkings are done by people who already know you. Most of the rest are opportunity crimes (a drug addict walking down the street). A very small small small percentage would be by people who learn about you on the Internet and target you with these techs.

I've studied a lot about child abuse. You should be FAR more afraid of someone your family trusts like a teacher, priest, friend, etc than anything online.

Yeah, but Robert, what about people who do "already know you" and use these maps to find access points, flight paths, etc. That's more what I was talking about. If somebody already has those inclinations, these maps can empower them and give them more confidence to actually carry out what they're thinking of.

Not to mention that they give terrorists detailed information about concentrations of people and where vulnerable infrastructure are.

I'm not a paranoid person, and I actually think that people have a tendency to blow up invasion of privacy issues beyond reason, but there's just something alarming to me about such detailed maps that can be so easily zoomed in and zoomed out.

You have to admit that it gives unprecedented knowledge about our physical lives to anybody who wants to know.

I also got redirected to http://intl.local.live.com/ in Safari. That page has two text boxes. "What" and "Where". Neither one can find your address. Sometimes Microsoft is still f-ing hopeless.

There seems to be a redirection based on User Agent
string. For example, in K-Meleon redirection occurs
with default string:
"Netscape 1.1.2, 5.0 (Windows; en-US)"

But if I change the string to the Firefox:
"Netscape 2.0, 5.0 (Windows; en-US)"
than it works ok.

MS IE6 string is also OK:
"Netscape 4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1), 5.0 (Windows; en-US)"

Cheers, Roman

Hi Scoble - if you are running IE or Firefox on Windows, Check out one of the prettiest features in this release - Birds Eye in 3D. i have a video on the VE blog at:

Video from Steve.

we have a bunch of other new stuff in this release, not all as pretty but quite useful. feature list is here:

Virtual Earth Feature List.

Steve Lombardi
Virtual Earth Program Manager

Nice, but for my area in the NE corridor, the maps are not nearly as good as GE.

@Bob -

Let Microsoft know where your "area in the NE corridor" is, and if they really don't have better imagery, they'll send a plane up there to map it right away. They've got 80% of the US Population in high res and Bird's Eye (you must select Bird's Eye to turn it on if available in your area).

Microsoft, as always, exactly an entire generation adrift of the pack.

Hello from Cork City, Ireland. Over the summer Yahoo and Google added building-level geocoding to their four-levels-more-detailed sat imagery of the city. Ask.com maps, I found on Flashearth, goes three zoom levels better even than that -- all the way to maximum.

So I looked at the NEW FABULOUS live.com maps... and...

No building lookup. No street lookup. No imagery. In fact the only improvement is that it no longer corrects my address to somewhere in South Carolina, and merely throws an error instead.

If I simply enter 'Cork, Ireland', it misses the mark by nearly *twenty miles*.

FAIL.

Well,

I live in Montreal, Canada and we do not have bird-eye view yet in Live Maps. Bummer!

However, the satellite view on Live Maps for where I live is light-years beyond what Google Maps give. I would say the images and details are about 50 times better on Live Maps. The resolution and color fidelity are incredible.

As a regular Google Maps user (I never use Live Maps), I must say I was pretty stunned.

Also, the usability is pretty good. Well, at least better than Google Map's. When zooming, it actually stops zooming when I'm at the highest zoom level. On Google Maps, if I zoom too much, the map is replaced by a bunch of ugly messages saying "We are sorry, but we don't have imagery at this zoom level for this region. Try zooming out for a broader look". When comparing the 2, if find Google's approach amazingly stupid. Sorry, but if you want to show a message fine, but don't erase the best view I can get!

Weird. I never noticed the Google Maps deficiencies before trying out Live Maps tonight.

However, I doubt that I switch over Live Maps to get directions. Google Maps is on my Blackberry 8800 and works good enough.

Regarding permalinking... There's a Share menu at the top right. Select "Copy to clipboard" to get a nice URL to the view you are currently seeing.

Are you in a terrace there Robert ? Joined on both sides ? Blimey.
The garden doesn't look too big - poor Milan won't have much space to run around in ...

Using maps.live.com to get any usefull information on Denmark where I live is just hopeless. The maps are just not detailed enough.

Maybe it is unfair judgement on my part, but I always feel like Microsoft is more a US company that the international company I would expect them to be.

The aerial coverage for our bit of the UK on Microsoft is still vastly inferior to the stuff on Google in that although the maps are correct, the aerial view is more than seven years old so it still shows the two old houses that were demolished to make way for the road we now live in.

in firefox mac, searched on the zip for my suburb west of Chicago, a town of over 40,000, and saw the images you speak of, including an impressive birds eye view where can see a window a/c unit on my house that wasn't there this summer, so the photos are at least a year old

and...
while experiencing numerous navigational issues, including a map that panned when the mouse button was _up_, noticed what needs to be "filled in" for this to even be mentioned at the same time as gmaps, regardless of a slight edge in imagery...

Popular business categories:

* Apartments (0)
* Banks (0)
* Taverns, Bars & Cocktail Lounges (0)
* New & Used Car Dealers (0)
* Child Care Services (0)
* Florists (0)
* Hotels & Motels (0)
* Movie Theaters (0)
* Malls & Shopping Centers (0)
* Restaurants (0)

all those "(0)" counts sorta say it all...

release before ready, and try to get people to look at something whizzy in hopes that they won't notice that what matters most is mia!

Crazy thing is the time difference on the sat view shots vs the birds eye view. If I look at me house in Boston in Aerial view you see our townhouses which were built 2 years ago.
http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&cp=42...
Now if you look at the same location in Birdseye it shows the house on our property which was torn down roughly 5 years ago.
http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&cp=r1...

Weird ... Great Pics though

I noticed the same thing as Jeremy. The Birdseye view of my Boston home clearly shows my next door neighbor's white minivan in his driveway, but he moved over a year ago.

wooohaaa, very cool and at the same time so very creepy... I can almost look into my old bedroom.

Even my parents' home in a small town in the Netherlands can be seen in great detail...


ooompf...

(and no probs in Firefox)

Permalink isn't working - and the search doesn't function in Camino. (but I'm sure everyone besides me knew that)