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MSN Virtual Earth Revealed
jeremyw writes "A day before its official launch, MSN Virtual Earth has gone live. MSN appears to have been inspired by Google Maps in this combination of local search and mapping. Virtual Earth introduces a number of interface enhancements to the now-familiar draggable aerial web map, such as the ability to zoom in using your mouse scroll wheel, and a Location Finder to determine your location to determine your real-world location "using Wi-Fi technology." Microsoft blogger Robert Scoble claims the site may not perform at full capacity until Monday."
I hope Microsoft has their virtual earth rotating in the right direction this time.
I tried to link to the original Knowledge Base entry for this, alas, it doesn't seem to be there any more.
I can see my house from here!
bad_outlook
--
Is this vague enough for you?
wow microsoft is just leaps ahead of the competition when it comes to innovation
MSN Virtually Useless Earth took me to some little town in the US. Apparently, it completely ignored my criteria.
I love a lot of Microsoft products, but if they're going to compete with the likes of Google Earth and Google Maps, they're going to have to do a lot better than this.
Besides, the interface isn't nearly as clean and fast. Just my two cents.
What have they done to Columbia University's campus map?
Microsoft Version
(correct) Google Maps version
See for yourself.
Is it just me or does it seem like all MS is doing these days is just copy catting google? Google made a better search, MS tries to make a better search. Google makes a map, MS makes a map.
I think it's rather obvious that the creative type who comes up with the ideas usually prevails over those trying to play catch up. When MS makes something new and Google has to copy it, that's when you know the tables have turned.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
OTOH it could be affected by Slashdotting.
It keeps forgetting to load some sections of the map, and the scrolling crawls compared to Google Maps.
It's hardly a virtual Earth when searching for "Dublin" doesn't give a hit on the capital city of another country. With Google maps I can zoom down to street level in Dublin and plan routes. With MSN the closest I can zoom in shows me half of my country.
It's nice to see they put time into coverage. Anyone try an aerial zoom into Toronto. It's a big green blog until you get closer, then its got no coverage at all. Looks like I stick with Google Maps (not that I would have used Microsoft products anyways when superior alternatives exist :)
What a load of useless rubbish then.
First impression: not bad at all. It actually works in Opera (8.02) which I hadn't expected at all. Well, mouse wheel zooming doesn't, but I don't blame them. Dragging the map works, as does zooming with the widget. The space reserved for the map is way larger than in Google Maps - this is great, Google should take note of it. It also sports a version of what Google calls "hybrid" view, they call it aerial view with labels.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
The interface is a little cluttered, but it seems to work pretty well at finding where I am and zeroing me in on my current location, even though they were just using my IP address. Any idea how the "wireless" location service works?
Jerry
http://www.cyvin.org/
Looking at London, i see a label with a massive expance of blank map around it. No London boroughs, areas, regions, anything. If i tried to find my house it wouldn't go very far. You can't even zoom in very far.
At least Google had a great service for the areas they had up, then expanded it to the rest of the world. The MS map seems to have poor support all round.
And setting aside the international support, this was very slow and seemed "clunky" compared to the Google interface. I do like the scrollwheel support and the use of the same images for various zoom levels, as you don't reload the map on every zoom.
I know that google was not allowed to put up satellite images of certain areas around where I live, but I see them on the MSN map...rules don't apply to everyone?
At least for international areas, the maps don't seem to be as detailed as google's.
Also, the interface doesn't seem to be reactive to me, might be slashdotted, but at least with google you can see it's doing something.
I guess it's a bit early, should probably check again in a few days.
Zoom Player Lead Dev.
another cheap ripoff from a company who hasn't had an original thought in years or longer...
The worse part is it seems to be as buggy as their os.. Of course firefox is what I used so maybee it was on purpose.
First Impressions : The map itself is fine, zoom in, a little bit slow with Firefox, I guess the problem is not a problem on on IE ;-)
Satellite : I did try to see, close-up view, like in Google map, of Montreal, CA, but I guess satellite pics were taken on a fogy day ;-)
"MSN appears to have been inspired"
Inspired. Yea, that's it, Microsoft gets inspired by the ideas of others. I guess it works if you have no inspiration of your own.
And World Journalism continues to salivate at Mr. Gates' feet, calling him a technological guru, a bellweather, a visionary.
And to think I once wanted to be one among them. Sycophants.
On the map view, zoom into my hometown near Birmingham, UK using "Road Map" view.
Switch to "Aerial Photo" view and BLAM! straight in downtown Atlanta, USA.
It's amazing. I never knew my hometown could do that!
"It's not your information. It's information about you" - John Ford, Vice President, Equifax
Otherwise it is Google maps. I'm really surprised they didn't make some kind of effort to distinguish themselves. It wouldn't have been that hard to borrow the nice features of Google without copying it so transparently. The downside of this approach is that it invites immediate and direct comparisons to Google, which is a more polished and cleaner product. Also, it hardly supports Microsoft's claims of constant innovation. (I can envision this being used against them next time MS makes an appeal to the public about how innovative they are.)
Who's entirely too envious on someone else for the community they gather and the cool factor they have. Do you think Microsoft wants to change and actually get to the stage where they will listen to their customers and community?
I'll do the stupid thing first and then you shy people follow...
Great... One way to exclude Linux, I suppose.
I can't right-click to open in a new window on the little links in the DHTML popup and I can't use the back button to get to what I looked at previously.
Breaking fundemental core browser funcationality like this really sucks - because that consistancy is really the most important thing that made the Web easy to use in the first place.
it's a lot cleaner? are you stupid or what
i was redirected via a 302 to this site
http://msid.msn.com/mps_id_sharing/redirect.asp?v
why ? because Microsoft are up to their old cookie stealing exploits
read here
Meh. I was using ETAK digitized maps back in 1990. Take THAT, Intarwebs!
Why are you comparing this with Google Earth, rather than Google Maps - which is also browser based and works on your Mac?
Comparing Virtual Earth with Google Maps, it seems that Virtual Earth has far "noisier" data. An example should help.
Look at this cloverleaf. The curves are all jaggedy.
Now let's see what it's like with google. Much better.
I know it's probably just different input datasets, but it still is an important thing to have roads look relatively smooth, instead of jaggedy.
:wq
Sinai out of Israel. Good to see they got the West Bank and Gaza in there, though. Won't do any harm, no-one will complai.. BANG.
Probably. But it seemed a lot less cluttered that Google Earth's when I tried it. *shrug* YMMV, I guess. And I still like the Road Map view.
Given what Scoble said, I'll ignore it being terribly slow for the moment, but what the fuck is up with it having edges to the left of the USA and to the right of Australia? Seriously...
http://virtualearth.msn.com/default.aspx?cp=32.676 439%7C-117.158347&style=h&lvl=17&v=1
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=32.676147,-117.1575 27&spn=0.005491,0.006289&t=k&hl=en
Roberto
OK that not everyone reads the story, or even the write up, but can you at least try to read the headline? This thread has no relation to the one about the name dispute over Vista.
For at least the area I looked at, the aerial photographs were in black and white. The slider interface acts a little unintuitively (at least in FF I had to click, drag, click again,) and oh...there appears to be nothing original about it.
If Microsoft is going to "catch up" to Google, they are going to have to do quite better.
I'll stick with google maps, thanks. I'd rather not use a webapp that's designed for either one OS or one browser.
Have you run Google earth? Its not just a map program, its a 3d globe of earth. Similar to NASA worldwind, but with google searches/information built in.
This looks like a copy of google maps, which is a 2d map program, both of which are browser based.
Is this another case of "Some one else did it so we'll do a poor wannabe and attract Joe Nobody"? No wonder Vista is so delayed, they keep making side projects which just can't compete with Google.
Give up, fix the OS then MAYBE we'll want to use your stuff not just mock you childishly.
I like muppets.
Microsoft doesn't create markets, it attempts to take over young markets through agressive (and sometimes illegal) marketing. It aims to achieve a monopoly, which it can then use to lock its customers in, creating a long-lasting cash-cow.
This is the technique used for Microsoft Windows, Word and Internet Explorer. It isn't always successful, but it is successful often enough to make a lot of money and annoy a lot of people.
Strange, when I go on the MSN example I can't go back, with google no probs ? ;-) Tks for these example :)
Virtual Earth my ass, it's Virtual US. Another US corp with heads that wont fit in their helmets. /dons appropriately sized tinfoil helmet
Well, it doesn't work at all with Konqueror (neither does google), but while google maps works perfectly with Mozilla, the results are varied for MSN. Naturally.
NBC made that goof in the early '80s. They had a rotating earth in the intro sequence for their evening news broadcast, except it was rotating the wrong way. It was left this way for quite some time, too.
Yeah. I like how that scratch pad really gets in the way of what I want to look at. An those giant numbers on the target are much less obtrusive than the translucent + sign.
if you steal from one source, that is plagiarism, if you steal from many, well, that's just research.
- If you do a "local search" it brings up a panel with links - however if you shift-click or right-click on those links there's now way to open the new page in a new window.
- If I hit the back button I don't go back to my previous local search results. Heck, somehow they messed with my browser button so the back button never leaves their site. I remember back when porn companies did this, but I don't expect to see reputable organizationos do this.
- I can't right-click on the image to bring it up in it's own window -- a normal web-browser feature that is very nice for printing maps without wasting paper&ink on useless headers and footers.
Basically, this page combines all the limitations of a web brosers with all the inconsistancies-and-difficulty-of-use of a PC application.The one thing that made the Internet easy-enough-to-use to make everyone comfortable with it is that all pages worked the same way (back button works) and all links worked the same way (same right-click-menu). Why does Microsoft feel a need to change this?
...These new satellite and mapping applications are just buiding on what Terrasoft was. Terrasoft was actually a clearinghouse to test and demonstrate MS-SQL Server. Neither Microsofts new service which is based on ActiveX nor Googles which uses a windows only client works for me because I use Linux but I have been using Terrasoft for years. Imagine that.
I'm not sure, but I think Microsoft may be living in a bit of denial...
On the other hand, it took only a week or two for them to update Flight Simulator!
- Scrolling is dog slow.
- The zoom effect is totally pointless, and ugly besides.
- None of the menus work.
- Aerial imagery, over my part of the world (northern Europe) at least, is really bad. At best I can destinguish my city -- In Google Maps I would be able to see my neighbours car.
This is on Safari / Dual 2.0GHz PowerMac.My question is, why did they even bother?
Ford ripped off Panhard & Levassor, the unoriginal SOB.
Well shucks, every dingbat with a bicycle shop was building cars at some point... hence Chevy, Dodge, Lincoln et al.
Um, I've forgotten what my point was. Oh, yes. France Pwns Ford!!1!
looks like to be the latest way MS can spy on you. Of course, all the IP data will be loged for "statistical purposes" along with your Windows key.
Honestly, doesn't anyone feel that this nearly useless feature is nothing more than an invasion of privacy?
I can see how if you let the program running in the background, you will start getting special MSN ad's for where you are. "You seem to be on the Microsoft Campus. Would you like a free longhorn beta?" No!
Well...because I'm dumb, I guess. I say that honestly, too, not as a snarky reply. I guess I just assumed that because they called it "Virtual Earth" they were aiming for the same thing as GE.
And to betray even more ignorance...I, uh, didn't know about Google Maps.
You know, I wish I could take back that original post now, just because I hate being stupid. But whatever; I still do like Virtual Earth, and I'm not ashamed to admit it.
Ironically, a few years ago, I put up some satellite photos of my house in Colorado ... and the Virtual Earth has the same ones clearly showing the drought of 2002 with a bunch of brown grass - not realistic to expect real-time imagery, but I'm surprised not a more recent pass.
Hulk SMASH Celiac Disease
I looked up my town and saw that the maps are at least 4-5 years old, whereas Google's is about 1 year old. I can tell this because my town has been building the nation's longest cable stayed bridge, and MSFT doesn't even show the beginnings of the bridge 3 years ago, whereas Google Maps shows the bridge almost finished about 1 year ago (it just finished last week). The inferface is clunky, the slider sucks, and it's slow (probably due to /.). But, it looks like the MSN engineers just copied Google, down to the tiling, the drag scrolling, and even the unavailable map thing if you zoom in to far. It even says Beta next to it.
I mean, if you're going to copy something, do a better job. It always takes MS until version 3 to do something right. Google better watch out...
In general, I like Google map but Virtual Earth's map does look better in some cases.
6 552%7C-77.070432&style=r&lvl=17&v=1Virtual Earth. 895976,-77.071688&spn=0.005545,0.010131&hl=enGoogl e map
http://virtualearth.msn.com/default.aspx?cp=38.89
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Arlington,+VA&ll=38
Google map doesn't display the name of the road (Fort Myer Dr.) that goes down from Lee Hwy (29). Also Virtual Earth represents the road as being separated into three streets with all going the same direction in a bit clearer way.
The scrolling gets a lot faster if you close the help panel on the left. Another bug?
The cars aren't moving.
I always assumed it was Gates' ego - he honestly believed the sun should rise on him before most of the rest of the U.S.
Viewers noted that MSN Virtual Earth, in contrast to Google Maps, seems to be entirely uniform and composed of a single color resembling BSOD blue.
Some of the satellite photos seem to be a lot older and more out of date than the photos that Google provides. When I compare images of my home town, I notice that MSN is missing buildings that have been in existence for at least ten years, while Google has them.
You can install Location Finder to display your current location on a Virtual Earth map by using Wi-Fi technology.
I don't have ActiveX enabled, natch, so I can't test this little piece of technology--but based on the blurb it sounds like it works via WPS which is interesting mostly becuase of what it's likely to do to the WPS competition.
Can anyone else test this to see how it operates, if the tech was developed in house or purchased, and if it's accurate at all?
--
$tar -xvf
Visiting the site makes my konqueror crash. Fair enough, googles version also doesn't work for konqueror, but at least it doesn't make it crash.
what a pile of crap if i do say so myself.
a pile of crap..
This is a very common mistake. On the front-page of some IBM's web-site Earth rotated in the wrong direction as well (although site was in no way topography-related). Defect was opened. Solution? "In the next version the Earth will not rotate."
I also saw it in the TV news heading (but not on NBC, it was Russian channel). Probably designers do it wrong in 50% of cases.
I went there and it didn't load properly, backed out to /. and went again to the site and it came up zoomed to (what looked like) a very specific address in what I think was Atlanta...
It struck me as the kind of errors you sometimes get with mod_perl and Apache when you don't do things right...
-- My Weblog.
If you look at the Aerial Photos of MSN Virtual Earth, you'll notice it has the Google Maps hybrid functionality.
Now I bet that Microsoft was the first to do this, and that Google somehow knew about it beforehand and implemented before MSN Virtual Earth became public.
Maybe Google employs some spies in Microsoft!
Go back to your cubicle, fanboy. You have never used google maps, or are obviously out of your mind, or you think you will get something from Microsoft for spewing such untruth. Google maps is miles ahead of this unfinished, buggy, peice of crap. At least google makes SOME effort at including countries other than the US. At least google manages to overlay the road map onto the pictures properly. But what did you expect from Microsoft, other than the name?
The zoom 'tweening' effect they are using 'blows goats' on Firefox (approaching 1 fps on my PC) but is quite smooth on IE. Maybe Firefox rendering needs optimised for whatever wacky stuff is going on in this case. ;)
OR MAYBE IT'S A CONSPIRACY AGAINST FIREFOX!!!
Was anyone surprised that Microsoft copied Google, AGAIN? This is just another example of MS slapping together a poor imitation of someone else's innovation.
I recall when Terraserver went online (1998-1999?), it was oh-so-cool being able to watch satellite images on a planar surfaces.
Well, I agree that Google's offering is currently sweeter, but all bashing aside, I give the innovative kudos to M$ this time around for an actual first.
Wow. Talk about typical Microsoft quality. I put in my address which is in British Columbia, Canada (which Google Maps & Earth has no problem finding) and I ended up in the middle of Nebraska. I had to give it address, city, province and country before it got it right.
The program feels rushed, and doesn't have the same feel as Google maps. The name "Virtual Earth" seems to try and straddle both Google Maps and Google Earth.
I've learned from the past not to count Microsoft out when it comes to their dominance in the marketplace. That being said, I can't see any reason why I would choose to use it over Google Maps. It will be interesting to watch the battle between Microsoft and Google unfold, both in the courtroom and the marketplace.
Ruby on Rails Screencast
You are an idiot.
The double-click is nice, to center the image and increase the zoom level by one notch. Some of the scrolling features seem potentially cool, how you don't have to click in the direction you want to the image to scroll on the compass, you can just drag outwards a little bit then change the scrolling direction by mousing-over another part of the compass.
It has crashed and it needs to reboot.
It's pretty choppy compared to latest IE on WinXP. Probably due to the DHTML performance bugs on Firefox?
Also, the scroll wheel should zoom in centered on where the mouse pointer is to be more useful; like how zooming works in Paint Shop Pro.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
Search for Bangkok, finds nothing.
Granted, google's interface is smoother and faster.
:O
However, the first thing I tried with both microsoft's and google's system is try to find my home town (in Belgium)
Twice I was in for a disappointment: google maps doesn't even indicate ANYTHING in belgium (as a matter of fact, when it was first launched, it had even switched the names of Belgium and The Netherlands).
Virtual Earth doesn't zoom any further than a large view of the coutry with the largest cities and towns indicated, but it does at least that!
I don't care about how good it is for US map, I never go there!
Sorry, I'm not a big M$ fan, but this time they seem to have done an overall better job.
BTW It also seems to be working great in Firefox on FreeBSD
Microsoft's pleasantly surprised me with this one!
Man these arial photos are old. My house was built 5 years ago, the naighborhood has been here longer, and the arial photo shows a field where my neighborhood is. They really need to get updated photos.
Never Underestimate the Power of Stupid People in Large Groups.
I think I'll wait for Yahoo! Earth.
How unusual! MS coming up with a poor copy of something already done by somebody else. This truly is MS's innovation at its best.
The aerial photos for my area (Bloomington, Indiana) are MUCH older. My house wasn't even built yet(Dec 2002) on these photos. In fact, most of my neighborhood wasn't built, which make me think that the photos are from around 1999 or 1998.
Egad!
Nobody's gay for Mole-Man.
If you have a mouse scroll wheel.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
let's see what's hot these days, and then build a copycat product, and stamp our name on it, which is sure to make it big...
or not.
most likely, not.
and i'm in Ontario as well. I had to give it more information than I would google but that wasn't a big deal.
"Thanks to the remote control I have the attention span of a gerbil."
Good: decent interface. I like the bigger map area, and the fact that informational boxes can be eliminated to make it bigger. The overlaid locations and roads are well-done on the satellite images (but see below for alignment). Works with Mozilla. Prettier than Google.
Bad: Miles and Yards only? Where's hogsheads and cubits? At least put km and metres in there too. Slower than Google maps (or did we slashdot Microsoft?). Apparently unaware of named locations outside the U.S. (e.g., search for London, England; London, United Kingdom, etc.).
Ugly: Lower resolution images for many areas. Detailed aerial photos are black-and-white only. In some areas outside the U.S., when the location reaches a detail limit, the interface just ignores input (e.g., zooming further in silently does nothing, at least with Mozilla 1.7.8). Significant road:satellite image misalignment in many areas (more than in Google maps). Aerial images appear to be older (years older, in some cases) than Google -- whole subdivisions of houses are missing (I was looking in New Jersey).
For a first cut, it is pretty good, but, as usual, they have a way to go to catch up to Google, with the exception of making a superficially prettier interface. It will be interesting to see how it compares if they improve the content quality and its extent.
Let's see. Microsoft did Teraserver back in 1998. I guess, by your own definition, the tables have turned...
It appears that MS is using different Satellite imagery than Google. At looking at where I live in Connecticut, MSN resolves perhaps two more levels of detail than Google, but I'm sure this isn't the case everywhere.
Does anyone else notice any differences in their areas?
In any case, I suppose it's a win for everyone to have more map data at their disposal now.
'He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher... or, as his wife would have it, an idiot.' - Douglas Adams
I never assumed that NBC graphic depicted the earth rotating. I thought it was from the perspective of someone in a rocket circling the earth as he travels from West to East.
---Technology will liberate us if it doesn't enslave us first.
Knowing Microsoft, it'll be about 2.7 more years before they update the map.
Nobody's gay for Mole-Man.
I downloaded it a few days ago. It's now free and even better than the version released last year under the name "Keyhole." It's much less clunkier than google maps. It now maps out driving directions that you can see and print, too. It's a great time killer as well.
---Technology will liberate us if it doesn't enslave us first.
Google has nothing to fear. What a piece of garbage that thing is. Scrolling in and out doesn't work properly half the time, and when it does it brings my Athlon64 3000+ to its knees. Not top of the line, but I think it should be able to handle a map on the Internet.
Why the fuck do they call it virtual earth, it's not the earth, it's only fucking usa, I tried Paris, London, Moscow, Berlin. Nothing.
Dear Microsoft, although you'd probably love it that way, but Earth!=USA, there're still other countries - until your government (or their actions) bomb them to debris.
Now j/k aside. Why do they call it Virtual Earth?
Why is it that you can view Groom Lake from Google Maps in satellite/aerial mode, but this MSN thing has a No Photography icon over the same area?
"I might have made a tactical error in not going to a physician for 20 years." -- Warren Zevon
truly awful. this isn't finished! When oh when are they ever going to learn?
I wish they'd hurry up and just DIE! We don't need you, don't want you anymore MS.
It appears that it is an integer rounding error. Notice how the MS lines line up exactly in the y direction, the x direction, or are exactly 45 degrees -- whereas Google lines are at the correct angle.
now it's locked up.
this is typical MS. They are simply trying to copy what others innovate (mapquest => google => MSN). google did a nice re-innovation, while MS is desperate to have something there.
Give them a couple of more years, and it will probably be good.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Microsoft metaphor for 'it's doesn't work'.
I ask mostly because I did a search for Toronto and got several options in the US...
My Journal
http://virtualearth.msn.com/default.aspx?ss=woodla nd%20park%20co&cp=38.992868%7C-105.137923&style=h& lvl=13&v=1
:).
Note that all the businesses in Woodland Park are off in the mountains, while Woodland Park is off on the right
Here's hoping that it improves. Competition, even if it's from Microsoft, will benefit the consumer. Even if Microsoft's got the town separated from its businesses, the image resolution in Woodland Park is much much better than Google's.
It's nice to see some competition for Google, but it still has ways to go.
One problem is that many of the maps are black and white...making it hard to see specific details if they're the same shade.
The other problem is that the zoom doesnt go where I want it to. Center new york in the map and zoom in and I end up looking at woop-woop in new jersey.
But at least it works in FF!
Sparks:Gadget:Beer Maker
Space not available
This MSN Spaces feature requires Internet Explorer 6.0 for Windows or later. Please download the latest version of Internet Explorer.
Except it's not really Virtual Earth - it's more Virtual United States. There's very little detail outside north America (just like Google)
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
It is important to consider that criminals will be able to scout en masse and "high-throughput". The Russian mob will be casing your property from across the globe eventually.
I suggest you read Slashdot
...Microsoft blogger Robert Scoble claims the site may not perform at full capacity until Monday... isnt all of M$ products doesnt perform at full capacity?
Aren't they both just following up (slowly) on Neal Stephenson's idea from Snow Crash ?
With all due respect to those "hard-earned" software patents the big vendors are sporting at every turn, I'm not sure that at this point in time that anything you see actually implemented was necessarily thought up by the organization that implemented it.
For example, science fiction writers often write about things like communicators, phasers, voice interfaces to computers, teleportation, robots, and so on long before big companies implement them. And often those scifi writers get their ideas from other, less well-known but still publicly available technical journals, computer programs, fanciful stories, and so on.
Society is rich these days with technological ideas, which is why software patents are such a bad idea. But while ideas are cheap, implementations are not. So I don't see that any of us are hurt by a second implementation of this complex idea per se.
What we ought to be more worried about than where the ideas came from is where they're going. "Copycatting" is self-correcting because if the market thinks it was a waste of time, the cost will not be recovered.
But meanwhile it's there and accessible. And especially as program APIs are added to these things, I wonder where people will point fingers the first time one of these is used as a targeting system for terrorist missiles.
Kent M Pitman
Philosopher, Technologist, Writer
so this - and Google's entry - are perhaps a 'proof of concept', but definitely no more than that. The real work is only beginning! So I guess we'll be a few years yet before a really good - read: globally useable - 'product'.
Click on "See your location on the map." A window appears over the map with choices on how to locate yourself (why would I not know where I am?) Click on the upper right X to close the window ... nothing.
The scroll wheel zoom is a little disconcerting. It zooms the current zoom level's map, and then redraws the map at the ending zoom level.
Pretty fast but some of the images don't load consistently.
The white text outlines in Google are easier to read. And Microsoft seems to over-label things.
Google
MS
One thing that jumps right out at me is how much the performance must suck for those with less than optimal video cards. When you double-click to zoom in on a location, it starts scaling the full-screen images, with a semi-transparent sidebar over it. At home I have a decent video card, although at work I have built-in video and it can barely handle the large flashing ads on some websites.
There's also the whole issue of the satellite imagery being too dark. That's just disturbing. It looks like they took all their images during a power outage.
One final complaint - the streets have "bumps" in them. Basically it looks like the street quickly shifts in one direction by about a full street width.
I'm sure there's more things wrong with it, but thats just what I've noticed in a few minutes. Besides that, it looks like they need to up the performance of their web server. I get lots of broken images. Usually 1 or 2 for every full screen refresh of the map, either by zoom, or scroll.
I can tell you that the pictures of Orlando were taken on or before August 13, 2004 because it clearly shows my house with a couple of trees that got destroyed when Hurricane Charley went through last year.
NAVTEQ also did not supply the photos. NASA did. Read carefully.
It is really annoying, that zooming is done differently: google: wheel down: zoom in ms: wheel down: zoom out But this is an old problem with any CAD software. Which metaphor is used ? Are you pulling an object towards yourself (above: google like moving earth towards yourself) or are you moving yourself towards an object (above: ms like moving yourself towards earth). (BTW, pesonal note: I prefer the "wheel down=zoom in" and use this in our 3D surgical planning software for dental implantology, www.med3D.com)
When is MSN Virtual Moon coming out? Virtual Mars?
but Google was able to tell my city was in Canada. MSN figured I had misspelled my city and offered me a bunch of selections from the US. It wouldn't even recognize the province until I TOLD it it was in Canada.
(At least it was able to figure out I was talking about Earth without having to supply the spacial coordinates!)
The GEEK shall inherit the earth...
Using the Firefox browser, I tried zooming into my city by dragging the zoom slider, and when I released it the slider snapped to the far 'out' position. So the only way I could get closer was to repeatedly click on the 'in' button.
Then when I got to my street and tried the aerial photo view, the map somehow shifted halfway across the continent -- going from California to Georgia!
Bugs aside, this appears to be just a clone of Google maps. Nothing new here (except maybe the WiFi locator, which of course I couldn't test because it requires ActiveX, and I run Linux), and certainly nothing to attract me away from Google.
You click on Georgia the country and it takes you to Atlanta, Georgia map... works just like all other MS products.
I like Google's interface better, and the scrolling seems a bit more responsive.
But I notice significant differences in satelite image quality, and I can't say one is better than the other. I live in Rhode Island... MS offers much higher resolution photos of the RI coast, but Google's imagery of Boston is far superior (and in color). It seems like both services pull use a variety image providers (freqently the same ones). Anyone out there have any thoughts on the partnerships between MS/Google & said companies, or why one engine seems to do a better job choosing the best photo?
I used the Locate Me (by ip address) feature.. It found my state but the satellite data was horrible. It looked like it was stitched together with polaroids. Theres all white borders and most of the imaging seems black & white and lots of it is missing. But a few minutes earlier I was browsing my state manually (by zooming into it) and it had full color good resolution images with no missing data. So it seems the locate me feature somehow causes you to look at different (horrible) map data
IS there a way to put latitude and longitude into Virtual Earth? I was trying to bring up this and/or this, but I couldn't figure it out.
...which "Monday" will be the one MSN Virtual Earth starts performing at full capacity.
And so the 'epic' battle between Google, MS, and other news sources begins! http://www.robinsloan.com/epic/
I know that everyone here will jump on your Bash Microsoft wagon, but you ARE mostly wrong.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
this service is slow, and uses terrible aerieal shots... i still say.. why does microsft fight google... they will never succeed
Wow... you figure they'd at least make this up to date.
The World Trade Center is still in the aerial photos for Lower Manhattan.
Now that's just pathetic.
Google has a much nicer and smoother interface (though the traffic today might be causing some of that effect). Competition is good! If Google can't handle a little (legal, non-anti-competitive) heat, than why put them on such a high pedestal?
A beginners' guide to Portland, OR?
who says google maps wasnt inspired by msn? just because google maps was released first doesnt mean they were the first to implement it. Slashdot is beginning to sound like some google fanboy site more and more.
...Google simply rules M$.
One one hand, they have much higher resolution photos of San Francisco. You can see the hammock on my deck, and you could have seen me in it if I'd been outside wearing a brightly colored shirt. On the other hand, although the photos of SF look fairly recent, the street names are at least five years out of date (compare Army St on MS maps to Cesar Chavez on Google).
.. in the Google version.
I wonder who's supposed to be able to see the "coronado" spelled out in the sand.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
name me ONE thing that microsoft had originally invented and that i couldn't tell you about a better-older creation
i challenge you.
I think Microsoft did a great job with this site. This is the first version and it has all the features of google map. Even the hybrid mode they added a few weeks ago.
And on some areas (San Fransico, Los Angeles...) the zoom level is insane (2 or 3 times better than google's). You can nearly see people on the streets.
Finally there are cool innovative features like locate me. And it works really good.
I know this is slashdot so I won't go any further. But I do think that with a little more work this could be as good or better than google map.
I typed my home's address and it pointed to a wrong house. I did this before w/ googld maps, and it pointed perfectly at my house ...
W/ MSN, it showed some house that is a few blocks away from my house ...
Check this out guys ...
The web page tells me to "try cool Virtual Earth features" and "slick new features." Do normal people, who aren't in junior high school, really talk like this? Why is Microsoft's marketing always so tone-deaf?
Looks like it's already /.-ed!!! Can't open the page!
I was wondering why today was going so slow.
The Earth has been slashdotted....
we have sucessfully slashdottet M$ =D
Is it me, or does this remind you of a bad bootleg video you can get in chinatown...
I mean, seriously. Shouldn't they just leave the duping up to Slashdot?
However at this point MSM zoom misteriously stops working!
I was unable to get a view that showed any more detail in the country. No error messages, nothing. It just doesn't work (perhaps because I'm using firefox?)
Google Maps, on the other hand lets me zoom all the way to the picture of the capital, although the high res area is, inexplicably, several kilometers east of the city of Ljubljana, showing part of the suburbs and scarcely populated hills, instead of the city center which would have been more logical.
Sorry, slashdot mangled the MSN link a bit.
Duct tape + WD40 => DevOps
Perhaps some truly ambitious karma ho will mirror it.
I survived the Dick Cheney Presidency 7 to 9 AM 7-21-07
... keeping up with the Jones's.
if(!toilet_paper) roll.replace(new roll);
Not exactly. I don't know if it's due to the underlying search or the integration but I tend to get more relevant searches for my suburban address. I live just north of Dallas and Google maps wants to give me hits primarily closer to Dallas, where MS's gives me hits around my actual address. Granted Google ends up giving me more ( maybe MSs doesn't reach out far enough ) but it looks like MSs local search integrated is more relevant.
"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
weve just slashdotted http://virtualearth.msn.com/ and msn.com is performing poorly.
Hey, is it me or is this slashdotted?
And on a weekend, too...for a company like Microsoft, this is just pathetic. What are they thinking? Google satelite didn't have any issues the first day. But I guess they don't run windows on their servers...
Stop it already, he' dead Jim. I think the servers got slashdotted. Never have seen Google go under in a slashdotting.
Thalasar
It's a rare thing to see someone being honest and non-snarky, such as yourself, on Slashdot. Your posts are refreshing.
A goat?
See, Google succeeds by getting developers involved. They say things like, "What do you guys think?" or "Hey, what kind of cool things can you do with this?"
Microsoft says, "Here are the most innovative maps in the world, bow down to our greatness!". Then, they step back behind the curtain.
A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. -- William James
Let's hope the World's Most Sophisticated, Innovative Software Company can handle a simple Slashdotting.
But comparred to the Google Maps, it's a horse-drawn buggy, while Maps is something like Porsche Carrera.
The site is down..... google never went down when it got slashdotted.
On the internet, nothing is ever truly gone forever.
s upport.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q131/1/09 .asp -- but slashcode makes that look truly ugly).
(For those of you who fear clicking on ln-s.net links off slashdot [and I don't blame you], that link goes to http://web.archive.org/web/20011108213243/http://
Still Slashdotted for me... :-/
wow taking forever to load... nothing like MSN load time... wow aint it fast... oh wait... its loading... no wait here it come... damn and i have broad band and it is acting like 14.4k dial up... well i love the hybrid maps on google :) so i am sticking to google :)
(yes i know i suck at spelling fell free to correct my grammar and/or spellin i dont care, im still not going to change
Is it just me or is the site down now? I cant get into it at all.
Microsoft blogger Robert Scoble claims the site may not perform at full capacity until Monday.
So I suppose us visiting it wouldn't be such a good idea. I can see the posting now:
"Slashdot Crashes Earth"
Damn it, it's slashdotted already. Did anyone get a mirror before it went down?
it's just ridiculous how they to play catch up with everyone else. lol. keep innovating guys.
At least that's better than when IE had the rotating Earth throbber. That only showed the Americas and Europe, and left out the whole of Asia!!!!
What about the really old Terraserver that Microsoft has?
http://terraserver.microsoft.com/
VirtualUSA ;)
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
BBC News made the same goof when they launched their TOG system in 2003 - small globe in the background behind teh clock at the left of the lower-third of the screen.
Mirror
I quit!
Actually, I posted this in the "Windows Vista Faces Lawsuits" story, so kinda amusing how it shows up here...
/.
Yay for
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
keyhole became "Google Earth"
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
I don't think the turnaround time is that fast at MS. I think given the tools and technology available, both MS and Google came up with similar ideas for an app - Google just beat them to the punch.
Yes, that is one cool aspect of Google, but I don't think copying is what MS is doing.
Two major problems with the search:
-The street name wasn't listed ! The address for "Nisha Rao" (I don't know why her address is in there) is listed as:
1000 St
Sacramento, CA
95814
Its supposed to be on "L" St...
-The numbering scheme changes when you zoom in.
I searched for Sacramento, CA, and tried to zoom in on the location "Nisha Rao".
It came up as point number 10 so I clicked on the "10" icon on the map and after zooming in the number changed to a 2. The search window changed correspondingly.
Microsoft couldn't develop a Polariod photo, let alone software.
You have to keep asking yourself, Monday of which year? and where are the APIs for this?
It can, as long as all Slashdotters have the Microsoft Assisted Cache Cash-Depletion Enhancement Booster (with proper patches).
If he'd have really wanted that, then he would have placed the Microsoft Offices somewhere on the East Coast. In case you were wondering, the sun rises over there long before it rises in Redmond, Washington.
First impressions of Virtual Earth:
The "zoom" feature is annoying as hell. Clicking from the main map, the image "zooms" -- as in zooming a static image, complete with ugly mosaic side-effect -- to about 4x size, then jumps down to the actual imagery of the next level at 2x.
The labels on streets and other items in the hybrid satellite view are much, much harder to read than Google's. The street lines are barely visible above the imagery.
And then there's the imagery. This is just good old Terraserver data -- that is, ugly black and white and more than eigth years old in most places.
Then there's Virtual Earth's embarrasing zoom feature. In most places, maximum zoom is not available.
Microsoft admits its Local Search doesn't even come close to Google's, limited only to inner urban areas. How helpful.
You can't do a simple click-pan -- double click comes with an implied zoom. Counterproductive if you're using double-click repeatedly to continuously pan (which is sometimes a lot more convenient than constant repeated mouse-drag).
Images load embarrasingly slowly. Google's had some bouts of image gaps in loading, but MSVE unapologetically drops its tiles in place while you watch, often with lots of gaps. Some gaps don't ever fill in -- eventually any Google maps gap will fill in, but in MSVE quickly gives up and the missing tiles appear as ugly missing-image placeholders.
As is typical with any MS application, it's bloated. The UI is graphics-heavy. Google is smart to spend its loading and graphics effort on the actual important part of the application (the MAPS, you know?), while MS can't resist against putting lots of high-res graphics in its presentation and controls.
And the final killer reason why Google Maps trumps MSVE: Google Maps API.
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
If this is their answer to google maps....then I want google to stop everything they are doing and start working on an operating system pronto!
Comparing this pile of crap to even the earliest beta's of google maps is like comparing a yugo in the junkyard to a ferrari just off the line.
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
Shit, it's a pity the Internet Wayback machine obey (Google Maps) robots.txt rules. Otherwise, our sons and grandsons could easily take a sneak peek at how earth was several years ago.
--
If life would be eternal, we wouldn't fear the death.