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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.
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
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.
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
You know, Ford makes cars with 4 wheels, and voila, GM copies them and makes a car with 4 wheels also.
I'm not saying Google is not innovating, but what is Microsoft supposed to do? If they don't make a mapping software, then they are attacked, if they do, then they are attacked.
Besides, I remember having a CD called something like Encarta Streets or something that was MICROSOFT mapping software long before google was anything other than a mispelling of goggle.
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.
- 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?
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!
Would you prefer that google had no competition? Competition can be a powerful drive to improvement, after all.
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.
I don't think that's obvious at all. It's perfectly possible to take someone else's idea, improve upon it, and produce a superior product. After all, they've just done most of the hard work and expensive R&D for you.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
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
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.
They both get their data from NAVTEQ. If you look in the lower right corner of MS Earth, you'll see "© 2004 NAVTEQ." In Google maps you'll see "© 2005 NAVTEQ."
So, they're using older vector data. They're using older imagery, too. For most places MS uses USGS DOQQs, probably from 1999. Google, for urban areas at least, uses more recent satellite imagery. But outside of urban areas, Google uses low-res Landsat imagery which is fairly useless for this application.
Let's see. Microsoft did Teraserver back in 1998. I guess, by your own definition, the tables have turned...
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.
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.
Check out Google's campus from Google Earth:
http://catatonic.org/grafix/google-google.jpg
Now from MSN's product:
http://catatonic.org/grafix/msn-google.jpg
Pretty darn nice. Sorry for the folks in other parts who don't have good resolution in either product but for the SF Bay Area, MSN has the better satellite images (for now). The block I live on not far from the above shots was similarly clear. I could clearly see my car.
Stop it already, he' dead Jim. I think the servers got slashdotted. Never have seen Google go under in a slashdotting.
Thalasar
I think you mean TerraServer.
This new Microsoft service is not based on ActiveX, it is just HTML and JavaScript as is Google Maps.
The only part of it that uses ActiveX is the "Locate Me" option, and even that is optional, where ActiveX is not available it will simply use your IP address to look up your location.
Google Earth is a windows only client. But MSNVirtualEarth and Google Maps both work fine in Firefox on any platform.
"Taligent is still pure vapor. Maybe they'll be the last who jumps up on Openstep... "
Mirror
I quit!