LiveSide - News blog : Virtual Earth

Bing Maps Imagery Release – May 2009 (Introducing Bing Maps World Tour)

Sunshine — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 16:19:04 GMT

This month’s release contains 248,000+ sq. kilometers of new imagery. But not just that. You won’t get a ginormous list of locations but an experience, an experience in the form of the Bing Maps World Tour.

The Bing Maps World Tour is hosted on Windows Azure and is built with the Bing Maps Silverlight Control (currently in CTP) to take advantage of the robust rendering capabilities within. Each month this tour will feature the latest imagery additions/updates to Bing Maps. You can sit back and watch the Slideshow, or explore it for yourself by navigating the pins.

A detailed description of the application’s features, and the list by country with sq. kilometers, can be found on the Bing Maps Blog.

Enjoy!

LiveSide Auto News: OnStar to use Virtual Earth; Zune in GM cars

Kip Kniskern — Wed, 13 May 2009 16:54:16 GMT

Just announced this morning is the news that OnStar, the General Motors “in vehicle safety and security” subscription service, will soon be using Microsoft’s Virtual Earth in their emergency response system. This means that OnStar operators will have access to 3D and Birds Eye images of subscribers’ locations, and have location information. OnStar could also tie into local search listings and routing information, according to Chris Pendleton in a post on his blog.

What’s even better is OnStar is using Virtual Earth 3D to give them a truly immersive view of where users are and the area surrounding them. The solution is an excellent example of how Virtual Earth’s entire platform - high resolution photos, expansive data sets, up to date road maps, 3D experience and routing algorithms can help in an emergency situation such as those that OnStar provides assistance for.

We would add to that list what many consider to be a superior development platform for Virtual Earth, but hey what do we know? ;)

And in more GM news, some new GM cars will be sporting Zune interfaces into their sound systems, as part of a “GM mp3 connectivity kit” available now on the new Camaro and available soon on 27 other GM models.

Microsoft Senior Technology Specialist Michael Gannotti has more on his blog.

UMapper’s Virtual Earth Game, Improve Your Geographical Skills

Sunshine — Wed, 13 May 2009 15:07:00 GMT

Want to game and improve your geographical skills at the same time? Then UMapper’s Virtual Earth game “Geodart” is for you. GeoDart is a geography trivia game that invites users to answer geographical questions by placing answers (locations) on the Virtual Earth map.

You can play games that are already there, like USA States Trivia, Countries and Capitals, European Countries or Downtown Seattle Trivia:

You can also play games created by the community or make your own version of the game. Virtual Earth Evangelist Chris Pendleton created his own game as well called Where is CP, When?, so you can see what conferences he’ll be at and when. Go on, have a look! Did you create one too? Let us know in the comments below.

Game On!

Virtual Earth, An Evangelist's Blog : Shall We Play A Game? UMapper’s Virtual Earth Game

Virtual Earth / PhotoSynth integration announced

Kip Kniskern — Thu, 07 May 2009 08:32:20 GMT

Remember back last March when we told you about Virtual Earth/PhotoSynth integration via GeoSynth? A UK blog, PocketLint, posted a story we picked up on the integration, allowing public Photosynths to be embedded in Virtual Earth maps. Well now, according to Travel website Travolution, the new service is being announced today:

The announcement today will give website owners the ability to place PhotoSynth applications into their own embedded maps, using either their own imagery or drawing from existing photos in the PhotoSynth library.

Microsoft is hoping the new functionality will appeal to hotels and other travel destination services such as tourist boards and DMOs.

Photosynth is a cutting edge imaging system developed by Microsoft over the past two years which allows users to navigate around a location in three dimensions using a myriad of different photos.

The system has resided within the Microsoft Live Labs beta test platform until now but will now be publicly available across the web within the Virtual Earth environment.

You can hear more about the announcements on the Virtual Earth News page. Along with the Virtual Earth integration, PhotoSynth will feature the ability to set your Synths as “unlisted”, so they will not show up in any index, the use of a Silverlight viewer, and the introduction of “highlights”, or marked places in the Synth that can be quickly accessed via a sidebar in the viewer. The Synths can then be embedded in Virtual Earth via an iFrame, accessible through the PhotoSynth.

While the Virtual Earth integration isn’t quite the Street View killer we and Pocket Lint had envisioned as it won’t be available in Live Search Maps, it will be available for anyone using Virtual Earth, although with restrictions, according to the Travolution post:

Matthew Quinlan, group product manager for Enterprise Mapping at Microsoft, told Travolution the integration of public ‘synths’ into an existing map will be free for website owners but commercial organisations will have to pay if they go over a limit for the number of unlisted photos used.

Currently only public photos loaded into PhotoSynth system will be available for the synths, Quinlan said.

“The big barrier for taking from something like Flickr at the moment is respecting other people’s copyright,” he admitted.

More info in the Press Release.

Visualizing Swine Flu On Virtual Earth

Sunshine — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 22:04:57 GMT

The Swine Flu, who hasn’t heard of it yet, and who isn’t tracking it? It’s all over the news; tv, sites, the blogosphere and twitter of course. Now you can also track it on Virtual Earth:

- Live Search Maps has a collection highlighting reported cases (both confirmed and unconfirmed) and the routes they traveled between home and vacation / business where they apparently contracted the strain.

- UMapper built out a version of the swine flu data which overlays raster tiles on Virtual Earth and renders it through a Flash interface. The heat map (which gets updated a few times through the day) shows the impact of the outbreak around the world where the hot areas are white at the center cooling off to orange and purple. This one is embeddable, so you can display it on your own site:

- Bo Zhao, a University of Florida student, build out a sweet UMapper Swine Flu mashup on Geoinformatics.cn in Flash that includes the heat map mentioned previously, but also includes pins indicating flu outbreaks and sweet animations if there are multiple pins in a single location. You can switch map styles and toggle the pins on the map.

Via: Virtual Earth, An Evangelist's Blog : Visualizing Swine Flu on Virtual Earth

Virtual Earth Imagery Release, April 2009

Sunshine — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 08:43:44 GMT

This month’s Virtual Earth imagery release is 9+ TB of data, all ortho again, covering over 1 million square kilometers of Earth. There have been new releases and/or updates for the following countries:

Albania, Argentina, Australia, Bahamas, Bolivia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, Chile, China, Columbia, Costa Mesa, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Estonia, Ethiopia, Gibraltar, Great Britain, Greece, Grenada, Guinea, Haiti, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Latvia, Mali, Mexico, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nepal, Netherlands Antilles, New Zealand, Niger, Northern Mariana Islands, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Russia, Rwanda, Samoa, South Africa, Spain, Suriname, Taiwan, Thailand, Togo, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United States, Uruguay, Venezuela, Vietnam and Zimbabwe.

As usual you can find the the full list, including towns/areas, over at Chris Pendleton's. The list is huge, in particular for India and China.

Happy Earth Day!

Sunshine — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 22:23:51 GMT

Today is Earth Day, a day designated nearly 40 years ago to inspire awareness of and appreciation for our environment. But it isn’t easy to be green, according to this study from MSN. Nearly 70 percent of people said that they would never limit toilet flushes to conserve water or use a kitchen compost. What Earth Day does do, is rise awareness of all-things-environmental.

Over on Microsoft's Environmental Sustainability Blog we read about why Earth Day Matters to Microsoft:

Effectively managing our scarce energy resources while addressing climate change - even as the world's population steadily rises - will be one of the great challenges of the 21^st century. Microsoft is working hard with our partners, customers and suppliers, as well as with governments and leading environmental organizations, to help address this critical environmental challenge. This Earth Day, I want to share the latest information on our Environmental Sustainability Strategy, which focuses on three core areas:

Using information technology to dramatically improve energy efficiency. Information and communications technology (ICT) products are responsible for around 2% of global carbon emissions, according to the analyst firm Gartner. Microsoft is working to create new technologies and improve industry best practices to reduce the energy use of information technology devices.

Accelerating research breakthroughs. Scientific research into the impact that human behavior has on complex environmental and biological systems provides the insights needed for effective policy change and increased environmental awareness. Microsoft Research is working with leading scientists to expand the boundaries of our knowledge by creating tools, technologies and models to enhance scientific understanding on a global scale.

Demonstrating responsible environmental leadership at home. Microsoft is committed to reducing our global carbon emissions per unit of revenue by at least 30% by 2012 (compared with 2007 levels). We have undertaken several initiatives to decrease our environmental impact, from green-building-designs to the introduction of food composting on all our campuses. We operate one of the world's largest company-owned fleets of buses to reduce congestion, emissions and employee commuting miles at our Puget Sound headquarters.

For more information on Microsoft's sustainability work please visit http://www.microsoft.com/environment

To celebrate Earth Day and help you create a more energy efficient IT infrastructure, TechNet Magazine is publishing a special online-only edition dedicated to Green IT.

Live Search is helping you go green by answering the following questions:

- What is my carbon footprint?
- What hybrid car is best?
- Where can I find stylish reusable shopping bags?
- How do I kitchen compost?

More tips and tricks for going green are offered on MSN Green.

Virtual Earth:

Los Angeles County just announced their Solar Map project which leverages Virtual Earth to allow homeowners and businesses to go online to determine if their properties are good candidates for solar power.

The Microsoft Research Team launched a new search engine called SciScope which is focused exclusively on rich environmental information presented on a Microsoft Virtual Earth map. The site facilitates data discovery and retrieval from millions of sensors that monitor the quality of the environment.

More information about the Solar Map and SciScope can be found on Chris Pendleton’s blog.

Photographers around the world can contribute to an ambitious project that will attempt to create a photo-composite of the world on Earth Day. The Earth Mosaic project started out as a wild idea to do something truly significant, involving photography. Something world-wide. More info over at the Microsoft Professional Photography Blog.

Happy Earth Day!

AT&T Launches Child Locator Service With Virtual Earth

Sunshine — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 10:37:07 GMT

Worried about your child’s whereabouts when he/she isn’t at home? AT&T just launched a service, called FamilyMap, that allows you to follow your child in real time via his/her mobile phone (yep, it does require your child to have a phone). Almost all AT&T phones are supported, as long as it’s not a Prepaid or Go phone.

So how does it work?
You give your child one of the supported AT&T devices (A-GPS ones are most accurate), then log in to the FamilyMap web site from your PC or mobile device, and you will see your child’s whereabouts on a Microsoft Virtual Earth map. You can even view where your child is in Bird’s Eye view! All this provided the phone is turned on and locatable within the AT&T network of course. Through the tool’s schedule checks option, parents can also receive alerts at specified times via text or e-mail. For example, parents could request a schedule check every weekday at 4 p.m. to check on their child’s location.

What does it cost?
You get the first 30 days free! At the end of the free 30 days, you will automatically be subscribed and charged $9.99 per month thereafter to locate up to two family members or $14.99 per month thereafter to locate up to five family members unless you cancel service. Of course standard data and messaging charges apply during the first 30 days and beyond.

More information can be found on the FAQ page and on Chris Pendleton’s blog.

With thanks to Jim from Waggener Edstrom for the heads up.

Virtual Earth API, 3D updates

Kip Kniskern — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 18:09:14 GMT

Last fall Virtual Earth released version 6.2 of their API, including the Virtual Earth AJAX control, and late yesterday it has been updated, according to a blog post on Chris Pendleton’s Virtual Earth Evangelist’s blog.

Today we released updates to the Microsoft Virtual Earth AJAX control and a new version of the Virtual Earth 3D map control. We’ve added a couple new methods for adding and removing pins (and DIVs) in the AJAX control; added performance improvements for AJAX and 3D; enhanced geocoding and parsing across the board (AJAX and Virtual Earth Web Service) and fixed a few bugs in the AJAX and 3D controls. There are lots of architectural changes behind the scenes that you won’t appreciate unless you’re inside Microsoft, so I will spare you the details of those. Now, that being said, for the AJAX map control we just upgraded Version 6.2, so you already have access to the new features and can start using them today without changing your link to Virtual Earth. Everyone is on 6.2 because we’ve either auto-upgraded you or you made the switch yourself. The Virtual Earth 3D control will require an update! Download the latest bits by going to your favorite Virtual Earth-powered web site (such as Live Search Maps) and click 3D and you will be prompted to install the latest bits.

For those of you (like me) who have been bouncing around between Windows 7 installs and haven’t gotten back to Live Search Maps in 3D, it’s well worth a second look. The install was quick and simple (like Chris says, just click on 3D on a Live Search Map and you’ll be taken through the install, just takes a few minutes). If you already have 3D installed, you’ll be prompted to upgrade.

(afraid this view of Seattle might be a little TOO realistic – we can’t even catch the sun in Virtual Earth!)

The updates include increased performance by compression to the 1.4 million buildings rendered in 3D (!!), addition of anistropic filtering to reduce blur and preserve detail at extreme viewing angles, the addition of a stylized Celestial Sky, and lots of goodies for developers. Much more on Chris’s blog, with links to even more detail, check it out.

Virtual Earth Imagery Release, March 2009

Sunshine — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 18:35:59 GMT

Last month only Obliques were added to Virtual Earth, this month it’s solely Ortho, 21TB’s worth! Not a huge release in terms of terabytes, but huge in terms of square kilometers of the world (63 countries are represented). Lots to discover for you on Live Search Maps!

Belize

This release contains Ortho imagery of:
Albania, Australia, Bahamas, Belize, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, China, Comoros, Costa Rica, Côte d'Ivoire, Croatia, Cuba, Democratic Republic of Congo, Dominican Republic, Eritrea, Estonia, France, Gabon, Great Britain, Greece, Guinea-Bissau, Hungary, India, Japan, Kenya, Latvia, Liberia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, Moldova, Montenegro, Namibia, Norway, Panama, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Djibouti, Republic of Macedonia, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain, Seychelles, Tanzania, Turkey, Ukraine, United States, Western Sahara, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Curious about the cities? Check out the full list at Chris Pendleton's blog.

The City Of Seattle Traveler’s Information Map

Sunshine — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 10:47:12 GMT

After the My Neighbourhood Map, which shows anything you may want to know whilst in the city, the City of Seattle added yet another Virtual Earth app to their site. This time it’s all about transportation. The Traveler’s information Map provides real time information on traffic conditions for major arterial streets in Seattle as well as nearby highways.

It features:

- An interactive Virtual Earth map that allows users to zoom in for additional details;
- Roadside camera images that can be viewed merely by hovering over a camera icon;
- Constantly updated incident and planned event information, mapped for easy reference and with quick access to additional details; and
- Links to mass transit resources such as Metro Transit, Sound Transit and the Seattle Streetcar.

You can even see how heavy the traffic is. Traffic volume information is gathered from measuring devices imbedded in the pavement of major arterial streets. The data is automatically translated into green, yellow, red and black lines displayed on the map to indicate the level of congestion.

Virtual Earth, An Evangelist's Blog : The City of Seattle Traveler’s Information Map
City of Seattle Press Release

GeoSynth: Microsoft’s answer to Google Street View?

Kip Kniskern — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 16:22:00 GMT

Pocket-lint, the “largest independent gadget news and reviews site in the UK”, is reporting today that Microsoft plans to take on Google’s Street View with a “public-led” offering based on PhotoSynth technology and Silverlight to “allow users to upload geotagged images into a central database to help build detailed larger images of a given landmark” to be “connected into Microsoft's Virtual Earth service allowing you to get a "street view" of anywhere on the planet”, according to the post on Pocket-lint.

The yet-to-be-announced new technology is apparently awaiting Virtual Earth working with Silverlight, which was announced at Mix09 last week, and is set to go into beta this summer, with a full release later this year.

Pocket-lint talked to Johannes Kebeck, a Virtual Earth technology specialist at Microsoft EMEA about the project:

"The system would take the best images from a location to create a single image of a specific landmark very much in the same way Microsoft did with the Obama Inauguration", Johannes Kebeck a Virtual Earth technology specialist at Microsoft EMEA told us.
"We couldn't guarantee that all images would be used, but you could create a very good image of a given landmark like Piccadilly Circus for example from thousands of images".

While there have been sightings of Microsoft vehicles taking what appeared to be Street View type images, and at one point a technology preview of a Street View type product was released by Microsoft, up to this point there has been no indication of how Microsoft and Virtual Earth / Live Maps planned to answer Google’s popular Street View feature.

via FastCompany

Photosynth Map Explore, See The World Through Synths

Sunshine — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 12:08:31 GMT

Nathan of the Photosynth Team created an Explore Map so you can see all geotagged synths. Sightseeing on a Map! Awesome, let’s have a look how this works.

When we go to the Explore Map, we start off with this screen:

Now that’s a whole lot of synths packed together isn’t it. Let’s zoom in (scroll wheel):

Now that’s better, but what’s with all them numbers on the leaves? Those numbers tell you how many synths there are in that area:

If it is a single leaf a mini Photosynth viewer gets launched when you move your mouse over it. Let’s look at one that was taken pretty recently (January):

[no, this is not my synth]

Ice skating on the lakes here this Winter! You can view the whole in the mini viewer or click on the synth’s name and go to the full one.

I’m absolutely loving this explore map, don’t you? Go check it out here! Want your (Holiday) pictures to appear on this new map too? Geotag your synths.

How To Geotag Your Synths

After you’ve created your synth, go to your synth and click the globe you see at bottom right:

Next, on the Virtual Earth map, move to where you took your pictures (synth) and click on the map. Then click Save and your synth will be geotagged!

Photosynth Blog : Photosynth Map Explore: See the World Through Synths

Virtual Earth Imagery & Map Data Release, February 2009

Sunshine — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 10:42:28 GMT

Another 55TB of map data and imagery has been released. This release contains Obliques (Bird’s Eye) for Italy, Norway, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom and the United States. For a full list of those, with images, please see Chris Pendleton's post.

Besides these, the Road map data also got refreshes and additions:

Refresh of North America map data

Refresh of European Countries map data

Refresh of Asia-Pacific Countries map data

Refresh of Australia map data

Refresh of Japan map data

Refresh of World Routable map data

New Localization of Italy, France, Germany and Spain at zoom level 1-9

New Localization across Western Europe in Italian, French, German and Spanish at zoom levels 10-21

Refresh of all Bird’s Eye vector overlays

Added localization to mobile tile set

Added localization to hillside shading mobile tile set

Want to know where Virtual Earth has what kind of coverage? Check out the geographic coverage table.

Live Maps Belgium launched…in French and Flemish!

Sunshine — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 11:12:19 GMT

After Live Search Maps for The Netherlands launched last month, their southern neighbor Belgium is now following with the release of their local Live Maps. And this is a special release at that. As you may know, in Belgium there are two main languages: Flemish (Belgian Dutch) and French. Therefore Live Maps Belgium launched in French (default) and Flemish.

For all you non-French, non-Flemish people out there who want to take a look: Chris Pendleton provides translations.