Microsoft Lost a City Because They Used Wikipedia Data (theregister.co.uk)

"Microsoft can't tell North from South on Bing Maps," joked The Register, reporting that Microsoft's site had "misplaced Melbourne, the four-million-inhabitant capital of the Australian State of Victoria." Long-time Slashdot reader RockDoctor writes: Though they're trying to minimise it, the recent relocation of Melbourne Australia to the ocean east of Japan in Microsoft's flagship mapping application is blamed on someone having flipped a sign in the latitude given for the city's Wikipedia page. Which may or may not be true. But the simple stupidity of using a globally-editable data source for feeding a mapping and navigation system is ... "awesome" is (for once) an appropriate word.

Well, it's Bing, so at least no-one was actually using it.
"Bing's not alone in finding Australia hard to navigate," reports The Register. "In 2012 police warned not to use Apple Maps as it directed those seeking the rural Victorian town of Mildura into the middle of a desert."

Comments

Not totally true

[hcs_$reboot]

Well, it's Bing, so at least no-one was actually using it

Many people use Bing for porn.

Does anyone use Bing Maps

[rossdee]

Hopefully not taxi drivers in Victoria

Atlantis

[Anonymous Coward]

I heard this sort of thing is the real reason Atlantis was lost.

I use Bing to search for Linux stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

When I have a problem with my distro or wanted to download another flavour of Red Had, I just smile and use Bing. You know, just to pi$$ them off.