For those of you running Windows Vista, a new sidebar gadget is soon to be released that displays Live Maps traffic data on your desktop. Featuring the standard Maps features such as panning and zooming, this is a must-have if you drive frequently in any of the cities it includes. Zoom out is only to a city level though, so if you're city is not on the list you won't be able to find much use for the gadget. No international support either as traffic data is currently limited to the US, but we don't expect that from a v1 product anymore.
It's great to finally see an official Windows Live gadget, so hopefully it won't be the last. Integration between Windows Vista and Windows Live is definitely a good thing, so more is better.
We'll post the download link once its up at the Windows Live Gallery, or you can subscribe to the Windows Vista gadgets feed.