Microsoft is keeping things interesting in the mapping community by releasing its
Virtual Earth online application. Microsoft has actually decided to add in real photographs of buildings, a feature that Google Earth has not yet implemented. Microsoft currently has 15 US cities with the 3D views, and plans to have more than 100 cities by the third quarter of next year. Another difference with Microsoft's new Virtual Earth is the integration of ads in the 3D environment. Not sure how I feel about this integration of virtual billboards yet. Aren't we bombarded with too many ads during the day as it is? Next we're sure to see the time on our watches having hourly sponsors! That aside, the Virtual Earth team has done a nice job with this interesting 3D feature. It's a great way to totally immerse yourself into a kind of realistic flight through your local map searches. Look for a name change in the future as well. The team will be changing the name from Live Local Search to Live Search Maps. Unlike Google Earth, this application runs totally inside the browser with an internet connection, and a special virtual earth setup file. Unfortunately I was unable to test this out yet. The installation bar kept giving me the message that
"The installation is taking longer than expected." It's been 20 Minutes so far, and I gave up. Was anyone able to check this out yet?
Tags: 3d, billboards, browsertips, earth, google, microsoft, search, search maps, SearchMaps, virtual earth, VirtualEarth
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Comments
10
Subscribe to commentsBillNov 7th 2006 2:24PM
It's pretty cool once you get it installed, but installation was a bitch. Seemed like there were about 7 steps -- why so freakin' complicated?
The 3-D UI feels backwards to me.
But the 3-D visuals are really slick -- except for the bright orange billboards sprinkled around on top of tall objects.
It's funny to see elevated freeways -- they sometimes do a rollercoaster at the overpasses due to the way the elevation mapping works.
Turn on "Traffic" -- very cool.
Come on Google -- Microsoft is now in the lead!
dfgdfgdfgdfgdfgfNov 7th 2006 2:52PM
For some stupid reason this won't work on non-US Windows. Not cool, totally lame.
Chris BetzNov 7th 2006 3:44PM
Has anyone seen the 3D floating ads for the Nissan Sentra?!? It's hovering over Philadelphia...
MoshNov 7th 2006 4:36PM
I don't mind the virtual billboards. In fact if they advertise lcoalised services and products, even better.
Alex MNov 7th 2006 4:58PM
Dum, da-dum...
http://www.playfuls.com/news_05062_Microsofts_Virtual_Earth_3D_Much_Inferior_to_Google_Earth.html
wasabiNov 7th 2006 6:17PM
lol why is there a floating ad for a nissan sentra in the outskirt of las vegas in 3d view? commercial sponsor?
asurrocaNov 7th 2006 7:02PM
What's all this complaining about the install time? The whole process took a moment for me.
I'm running Vista RC2 on a AMD Turion 64 machine with 1GB RAM, and not only did I not have any problems running this "software" (let's call it an IE extension). Heck, I was running VE and GE together to compare the two, and no crashes, no terrible slow-downs.
What gives? Is everyone here trying to run this on ENIACs or something?
wasabiNov 7th 2006 8:38PM
i'm running it on amd 64 3500+ with 2gb of ram and a geforce 6800gt and it lags! well at least the virtual earth does. install time takes about 2 minutes but the loading time for the 3d view takes a year.
ohlocalNov 8th 2006 11:55PM
Location-based application field is more and more crowded.
A totally new set of applications will jump out when network speed improved more. Let's wait and see :-)
Tony CNov 8th 2006 12:59PM
Internet Explorer 6 and 7 only folks -- those of you running any other browser or OS X or Linux are totally screwed. 'Course, this is Microsoft, so why should anyone expect anything different?